


is there any way this can end well?

by quinno



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Anal Sex, F/F, F/M, Hitman AU, Komahina - Freeform, M/M, More characters and ships to come, Multi, kind of a hate ship, komaeda is a horny cat, loosly based off the song i dont care by fall out boy, not very good, possible major characters death in the future, slow burn hopefuly, the feelies are gonna be here too, the writing gets better as you go along, there will be an actual storyline i swear, this is going to be more than just a porn i swear
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2018-12-09 20:43:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 44,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11676717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quinno/pseuds/quinno
Summary: Nagito is a hitman, and so is his long term enemy Hinata. They hate each other right?Right.At least that's what they thought.(hitmen companies au set in 2017 england)(also this used to be called 'a tragic situation' but i changed it okay)





	1. fucking your enemy is a great idea

**Author's Note:**

> TW: smut, gay shit, weapons, murder, injury, they're hitmen ffs what do you expect
> 
> song for this chapter: i don't care, by fall out boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is how it all began.

Charlotte Jameson, 39. Dyed auburn hair, square glasses, tall, will be wearing a green name tag. Take her out with as little mess and noise as possible and dispose of the body in the furnace round the back of the building. The company closes at 11 pm, have her dead and gone and be out of there by 10:30.  
Nagito reread his instructions carefully as he walked down the quiet office corridor, nodding casually at any people who passed him as he calmed blended in with the accounts and business men that surrounded him. Tucking the note in his pocket, he took a left at the printer and swaggered down another, identical corridor until he found a cupboard and slipped into it, stopping for a minute to prepare himself. Nagito lent against the dusty wall of the surprisingly spacious store cupboard and took a deep breath as he gathered his thoughts.  
Easy kill, Nagito. He thought, running a hand through his fluffy white hair, No big job. Just get it done and dusted. Carefully, he checked the gun in his blazer pocket, the knife in his belt and the lighter in his back pocket. All set. Nagito pushed himself off the wall with one hand and exited the cupboard as nonchalantly as possible, continuing down the corridor with a quickened pace, searching for his target in full concentration mode, until suddenly a familiar voice stopped him in his track.  
"Finally got yourself a proper job, Komaeda?" the voice was male, but not extremely masculine, dripping with sarcasm and sprinkled with bitterness, yet still smooth and melodic. Nagito recognised it instantly.  
Although the situation was very unexpected, Nagito knew that he couldn't lose his cool front. He smirked and span on his heel to face the man, and was unsurprised to see Hinata glaring back at him. Nagito grinned as he took in the pleasant sight that Hinata always was: The latter was dressed in almost exactly the same suit and shirt combo as Nagito, but with his recognisable green tie and slightly tighter trousers that showed off his long, almost feminine legs well as he stood, chest puffed out, one hand placed on his hip and the other clutched around a gun-shaped bulge in his blazer pocket. His face was full of irritation, dull green eyes narrow and untrusting, soft lips parted slightly. Attractive as always, thought Nagito.  
"Nice to see you too, Hinata." Nagito chuckled quietly as he approached the other man, who scowled and furrowed his eyebrows suspiciously.  
"W-what are you doing here?" he spat, not even flinching as Nagito moved slowly closer to him.  
Nagito shrugged.  
"I've gotta kill someone. That's kind of my job, you know"  
Of course, Hinata did know. Hinata knew exactly what Nagito's job was because he did exactly the same thing. He knew ever so well the pressure, ever constant immorality and mental damage of the job, he'd seen the terrified last looks, lifeless bodies and the bloodied weapons of the job. He knew what it was like to question yourself as a person every single day.  
After all, killing people isn't exactly an enjoyable job.  
Seven years Nagito had been working for Fuyuhiko, a company (if that's how you'd put it) ran by Kuzuryuu Fuyuhiko that's main function was to kill people on demand. For seven years Nagito had been taking orders through untraceable phone calls and roughly written notes that instructed him on who to kill, where to kill them and how to kill them (Never a why to kill them, though. Most hitmen knew it was best not to ask questions.) Everything was managed from the Fuyuhiko headquarters, all Nagito had to was receive orders and go out and murder someone, usually with the help and guidance of another Fuyuhiko worker to make sure nothing happened to him.  
Hinata was in almost exactly the same situation as Nagito, except Hinata didn't work for Fuyuhiko. Oh no, he worked for Oogami, Fuyuhiko's rival company. The two hitmen providing companies, hands down, hated each other with an odd passion, and the same could be said for Nagito and Hinata. Everytime their paths overlapped they were filled with hateful, snarky comments towards each other, subtly angry glances, mock politeness and the occasional gun wound that made up their strange, up and down relationship (if you could even call it that.) Nagito knew that there was something special about Hinata, he just couldn't put his finger on it. Anyway, Nagito was delighted that he'd ran into his nemesis today, as he was everytime he met Hinata; Nagito enjoyed pissing off Hinata, enjoyed seeing all the emotions that that pretty face of his had to offer, and not to mention that Hinata was easily the most attractive man Nagito had ever encountered in his (extremely gay) life.  
"Please tell me you're not here to kill the same person as me." Hinata looked genuinely anxious as he pulled a small folded piece of paper out of his pocket and carefully read it. "Charlotte Jameson, 39 years old?"  
"Oh shit." Nagito raised his head slightly and laughed quietly through his nose. "This is quite a situation we have here." He leant towards Hinata and read the note in his hands. Identical to his.  
Nagito also couldn't help but notice Hinata's very well kept, neat nails. Was that clear, shiny nail polish?  
"Who the hell even hires two hitmen?!??" Hinata snapped, stuffing the note back into his pocket.  
"Someone desperate." Nagito pondered.  
"Someone stupid." Hinata ran a hand through his shiny brown hair, exasperated. "What are we supposed to do now?!?"  
"Well," Nagito put his hands in his blazer pockets and made direct eye contact with Hinata. "We both need to kill her, so surely it'll be easier if we just work together to take her out?"  
Hinata blinked. "Us? Work together?"  
Nagito nodded.  
"That's... that's ridiculous. We can't work together, we're..."  
"...Enemies?"  
There it was. The word that they both avoided at all costs. It never felt right, never seemed to fit, but it was the only definition that seemed to match their relationship.  
They stood in silence for about a minute.  
"Look, the way I see it, we both need to kill her, so if we work together, we're both still doing our job. Plus, we'll be much more efficient with two highly trainer killers searching for one person." Nagito smiled kindly, raising his eyebrows and almost pouting at Hinata, who stared, deep in thought, at his feet.  
"Fine." he snapped, sighing. Nagito's face lit up.  
"You'll really work with me?" he grinned, and Hinata's face softened.  
"Just this one time, okay? My boss is gonna kill me..." he muttered, setting off down the corridor in search of their target. Nagito ran after him, beaming as he caught up with the other man.  
"Well your boss isn't going to find out." he said, and Hinata looked at him curiously; It was obvious that Hinata didn't understand Nagito at all, but Nagito was sure he saw something else in his eyes. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but he had a good feeling about it, whatever it was.  
It was then that Nagito realised that he'd been staring intently into Hinata eyes for over a minute, and then that he realised how weird he must look.  
"Sorry." he broke the contact and started to walk off quickly, leaving a confused Hinata to tag along behind. Once he caught up with Nagito, the two fell into an awkward quiet as they pretended to focus on the job.  
"Sooo... How's life?" Nagito stumbled as he looked for something to say, desperate to initiate a conversation. Hinata took a while to reply.  
"Fine. How about you?" he answered dryly.  
"Not bad." Nagito said, looking at Hinata (who looked away and hoped that Nagito didn't catch him checking out his ass.)  
"Wait, what's that on your neck?"  
Dark bruises, prehaps a few days old, stained the airbrushed skin of Hinata's neck, mostly hidden by his collar but still prominent enough to be noticed. Rich reds, purples and browns edged with a rim of yellow, painful looking and sensitive; Something had happened.  
"Oh, they're nothing, just-"  
"Are those hickeys?"  
Hinata stopped dead in his tracks and glared at Nagito, angry blush painted on his cheeks as his hand whipped up to brush along the marks.  
"No, what the fuck. There just bruises from.. something that happened on a job." he grumbled, avoiding Nagito's eyes.  
"Have you been kanoodling with that Kamakuru fucker?" Nagito muttered, with more anger than he expected as he leant in closer to inspect Hinata's neck.  
"No! Why do you care so much anyway??!" Hinata breaths were shallow as Nagito's hand came up to gently touch the bruises, and his eyes darted back and forth from Nagito's face to the marks.  
Carefully, as so not to hurt Hinata, Nagito ran a finger over one of the smaller bruises as he deeply studied it, noting the way that Hinata flinched and gulped at his touch.  
"They look painful." he concluded. "What happened?"  
"I was just... in a situation. Someone tried to... strangle me. It's nothing really."  
Nagito looked up at the side of Hinata's face.  
"Someone tried to strangle you? Who?"  
"No one you would know. A guard, of the guy I killed. Luckily, I was with Gunda- another guy from work, so he saved me. It's nothing."  
"Surely it hurt though?"  
Hinata's face softened, and he looked down at Nagito with a strange emotion in his eyes.  
"It hurt's a lot. When I swallow. When I breath. When I move my head too much." he looked almost on the verge of tears, a situation which Nagito was nor prepared for.  
Acting without thinking, he leant up and gently kissed the biggest bruise, then the next, then the next, until every single mark had been blessed by his lips.  
Was it just him, or was Hinata blushing even more than before?  
"Wu-wu-what was that..?" he stuttered, at loss for words as Nagito pulled back.  
"Magic healing kiss." Nagito smiled and continued walking as Hinata was left flabbergasted by how childish a deadly killer could be.  
***  
Half an hour later and they still hadn't found that god forsaken woman.  
"This way." Nagito said, taking Hinata by the arm and leading him down another corridor.  
"No, we already went this way." he wriggled out of Nagito's grasp and faced the opposite direction, pulling Nagito's arm with him. "Let's go this way."  
Nagito pulled his arm back and Hinata stumbled.  
"I thought we went there a few minutes ago, though." he said calmly as Hinata narrowly missed crashing into him.  
"Well-" Hinata grabbed Nagito's wrist and dragged him the other way. "-I think we should go this way"  
Nagito let Hinata fling him down the corridor before straightening himself up and facing Hinata with a grin on his face. He wanted to play did he? Oh dear.  
"Not that I don't respect your opinion, Hinata, but I believe-" he gripped Hinata firmly by the shoulder, "-that we should go-" he pulled Hinata towards him and the corridor behind him, "-this way."  
Hinata tripped, stumbled and crashed right into Nagito's chest.  
Nagito stepped back and let his foot take his weight as he caught Hinata, letting the (only slightly) shorter boy collapse face first into his arms, nose pressing into his chest as he blushed furiously.  
"Ah, sorry." Nagito smiled coolly as he enjoyed the feel of Hinata's body against his.  
"W-what the hell, Komaeda." Hinata looked up, face crimson, expression furious as his angry eyes met Nagito's and they suddenly realised that they were breathing in sync.  
Like a scene out of a soppy rom com, Nagito leaned in closer to shiny-eyed Hinata, closer, closer, until their noses touched and strands of Nagito's frosty hair tickled Hinata's cheeks, closer, closer, lips coming together in a passionate ki-  
"No!" Hinata shrieked like a bird, Nagito thought, as he flapped away from Nagito's grasp. "We can't. We're enemies- You said it yourself!" he bit his lip anxiously as he hyperventilated.  
Nagito took a slow, gentle step towards Hinata.  
"What does it matter? No one here knows that we're "enemies"" he smiled mischievously. "We could be anything we want."  
"I- I..." Hinata stared at his shoes, breathing irregular as he ran a shaky hand through his hair. Nagito smiled yet again.  
"... Unless you don't want to?"  
Nagito, of course, knew that Hinata "wanted to". He could tell by the blush on his face, the stutter in his words, the sweat on his palms, the glow in his eyes. Nagito said that because he knew that, if there was one thing Hinata hated, it was people being wrong in their facts.  
"Of course I fucking want to, you-"  
Nagito took a step forward, grabbed Hinata's face and kissed him, hard.  
It was the most wonderful feeling, the best kiss Nagito thought he'd ever have. He wondered dreamily where Hinata had learnt to kiss so well, and how many lips had touched the ones that he bit. Hinata was warm and very much alive to his touch, moving, sensing, breathing. He tasted human, but Nagito also sensed a hint of mint gum, chewed a few hours before. Hinata bit down into Nagito's lip and Nagito squeaked in pain, pushing his tongue further into Hinata's mouth and gripping his waist (where his hands had migrated) tighter. Hinata's neat hands pushed against his chest, and Nagito pulled Hinata closer, making sure to brush their crotches together which produced a muffled moan from the other. After that, Hinata decided to up his game, and confidently stuck his hands down Nagito's pants.  
Nagito felt as high as Connor Murphy in the opening song of Dear Evan Hansen, but he felt the vibration of footsteps coming down the corridor and quickly broke the kiss, dragging Hinata into position by his left and casually walking down the corridor.  
"Wha-"  
"Shh. There are people coming." whispered Nagito, letting go of Hinata's waist swiftly. Silently, they let two woman in suits pass them, luckily neither of them their target. Once they were out of sight, Nagito turned to Hinata, grinning. By chance, Nagito's eyes flicked down towards Hinata's crotch area, and...  
"Ah. It appears we have another situation here." he purred, snaking towards Hinata who blushed heavily. Nagito leant forward and whispered right into Hinata's ear.  
"I think we need to deal with it. Right now."  
"Here? Are you fucking mad?!"  
"Probably. Let's go."  
Without letting Hinata say anything else, Nagito grabbed his wrist and began to lead him down the corridor, searching until he found his desired spot.  
"Here we go." Nagito pulled Hinata into the dimly lit storage cupboard, locking the door behind them. "We'll have to be quiet, mind."  
Nagito expected Hinata to object, to tell him this was crazy and a bad idea. Instead, Hinata pulled Nagito (by the hair) into another kiss.  
Nagito pressed Hinata against the walls, wildly kissing every bit of Hinata's face that he encountered as their hands explored each other eagerly. Hinata was breathing deeply through his nose, groaning and gasping under Nagito, who broke the kiss for a second to remove his own shirt. Hinata's entire body quivered with anticipation as Nagito kissed down his neck, careful of the bruises, and made his way onto his chest. Hinata's blazer and shirt were quickly discarded and Nagito went wild, hungrily leaving hickeys, marks and bites all over Hinata's smooth chest as Hinata whimpered and groaned. Once he was done with Hinata's chest, Nagito decided it was time to get to business. Meeting Hinata's lips with another kiss, Nagito slowly ground his hips against Hinata's crotch, producing moans from both of them as the sudden friction. Hinata began to move his body, slowly at first, getting faster as they almost danced together, rubbing and rocking and thrusting and grinding until Nagito grew impatient and unzipped his pants.  
Since Hinata was a hot, shaking mess leaning against the wall, Nagito took the lead, pulling down the other's pants and boxers and lifting his legs up, spreading them wide as he lined up his erection with Hinata's entrance, adrenaline high.  
"Y- you ready?" grunted Nagito.  
"Hah... Uh huh.."  
Taking that as a yes, Nagito spat on his hands and lubed himself up, and thrust toward his hips forwards, into Hinata.  
"Oh my god-" gasped Hinata, tears forming in his eyes as he let his head fall forward onto Nagito's shoulder. "Oh my god, oh my god-"  
"Hah...ha." Hinata was tighter than Nagito had expected. Maybe Hinata wasn't hooking up with Kamakura after all. "Y-you okay..?"  
Hinata closed his eyes for a second.  
"Yeah."  
"Mm."  
Without warning, Nagito began to thrust, and Hinata screamed. Turned on even more by the other's moans, Nagito went quicker as he felt Hinata's form melt under his hands, sweat rolling down their bodies in the dark of the cupboard.  
"Aah.. Komaeda..." Hinata groaned, still leaning on Nagito's shoulder. Nagito moaned too.  
"Ahh... say my name.." he groaned, pulling Hinata's hair until their faces were in front of each other and Nagito could steal another heavy kiss.  
"K-Komaeda." gasped Hinata as Nagito licked down his chest.  
"My first n-name." ordered Nagito biting suddenly.  
"I-I don't know you're f-first name." Hinata stuttered, looking down at Nagito.  
Nagito stopped everything, but made sure to leave himself inside of Hinata.  
"You mean... We've known each other for all this time... and we still don't know each other's first names?"  
"Y-yeah..."  
Nagito laughed breathily.  
"Wait- you're called something like... Naruto? Nagisa?"  
"Close," he moved his hips a little and Hinata whimpered. "I'm Nagito."  
"Nagito..." he smiled a little. "I'm Hajime."  
Now it was Nagito's turn to smile.  
"Hajime Hinata. Suits you." he leant in and captured Hajime's lips once again, and began thrusting just as he did.  
"A-ah! Ko- Nagito!" screamed Hajime.  
"Say it. Say my name." ordered Komaeda, moving faster than ever.  
"Nagito!"  
"Louder."  
"NAgito!" Hajime was screaming in delight and pain as Nagito finally managed to hit his prostate, pushing him Hajime over the edge into a glorious orgasm.  
"Hah...Nagito..." Hajime shook and arched his back, cum squirting against Nagito's chest. Nagito soon after that came himself, pressing Hajime hard against the wall as he let his orgasm erupt.  
"Hajime-"  
They were panting, gasping for breath, gripping each other's frail bodies to try and hold themselves up as they recovered. Nagito pulled himself out of Hajime slowly, and gave Hajime another, softer kiss on the lips.  
Just as Nagito was pulling back up his pants, they both heard a rattling at the door, and the lock unclicked. The two braced themselves, and the door opened.  
Dyed auburn hair, square glasses, green name tag. Hajime had landed his punch just as Nagito reached for his gun, and she crumpled to the floor before them.  
Nagito finished putting his blazer back on and bent down to check the woman.  
"She's out cold. You pack quite a punch, Hajime." he looked up at Hajime, who was buttoning up his shirt, tie loose around his neck.  
"Right. Let's get rid of her."  
Nagito picked up the unconscious woman bridal style and Hajime took the lead. Together, they snuck down quiet corridors, hid from every sign of life they saw, and eventually made it outside, to the furnace.  
Hajime quietly put a bullet in the woman's head, to make sure she was dead, and Nagito dumped her in the furnace and turned it on. As smoke began to pour out of the furnace, Nagito recognised the smell of burning bodies and grimaced, turning to Hajime.  
Hajime gazed off into the distance, hair waving slightly in the breeze. He looked at Nagito.  
"...What are we?" he asked eventually, biting his lip. Nagito swayed forwards, closer to Hajime, until their noses touched.  
"Enemies." he whispered, meeting his lips with Hajime's once again as they connected in a moment, deeply in love... surely? Was this love? It looked, smelled, tasted and felt like love, but was that possible?  
Nagito felt Hajime's knife brush his waist just as he aimed his gun.  
Bang!  
Nagito broke the kiss as he stumbled back, clutching the stab wound in his stomach as Hajime crumbled to the ground, blood pouring out the hole in his leg.  
"Komaeda, what the hell..." Hajime groaned, dropping his knife with a clatter.  
"I could say the same for you, Hinata." Nagito felt like laughing, but his stomach hurt too much. He touched it gently and his fingers came away shiny with silky red blood. The cut was deep, but hopefully not too deep to have damaged anything important on the inside.  
Casually, Nagito began to limp away, pressing on the wound with two hands to slow the bleeding.  
"Wait? You can't leave me-"  
"Enemies, right Hinata?"  
The silence was deafening as Nagito looked down, over his shoulder, at Hajime, writhing on the ground in a growing pool of blood from his leg. He looked down, smiling as he realised how it was.  
"Enemies."  
***  
"Drive."  
Nagito collapsed into the front seat of the Fuyuhiko pick up car.  
"You injured?" said the driver, Mondo, starting the engine.  
"Yeah. There was an Oogami hitman there. Tracking me." grumbled Nagito. "Stabbed me in the stomach." he looked to the side, "Right after I stabbed him in the ass." he murmured.  
"What?"  
"I said 'right after I shot him in the leg'" said Nagito quickly.  
"Right. You need a hospital."  
Nagito nodded and leant back in his seat, about to close his eyes when he felt something in his back pocket. Reaching down, he felt a small slip of folded paper, and lifting it to the light recognised it as his instruction note.  
He was just about to put it back when he saw, on the other side, writing. Nagito turned it over and saw a string of numbers, a phone number, and written underneath it:  
Your arch enemy.  
Nagito grinned.  
"What's that? Did'ya meet a chick?" asked Mondo teasingly. Nagito looked out of the window, still smiling.  
"I guess you could say I made a new enemy." he said, leaving a very confused Mondo to figure it out as he began to plan the things that he'd do to Hajime next time he saw him. It was a dangerous game that guy was playing.  
But, God, was it fun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello yes thanks for reading! this is going to be more than just a smut oneshot i swear, the story is just going to take time to develop. feedback would be very very very much appreciated ! thanks !


	2. you know when you realise you made a huge ass mistake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nagito has a bad day as he starts to realise what he's done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: not really much bad in this chap, just mentions of injury/death
> 
> song for this chapter: not today, by twenty one pilots

(5 weeks later) 

It was 11 pm when Nagito opened his eyes, and that confused him. 

He'd awoken for the first time that day at 3 in the morning after a forgettable nightmare and with the added fun of an impromptu throbbing headache. After he'd got himself some pain medicine and a drink of water, Nagito realised that there was no way he was getting back to sleep so he spent the entire morning huddled on the sofa with multiple blankets, watching random series on Netflix until it was 11 am and he decided to get up and have 'breakfast' (a slice of bread with peanut butter on it). After that, Nagito was hit by a wave of exhaustion and decided to take a quick nap. 

Only, it turns out he was really tired and what was supposed to be a half an hour rest turned into nearly twelve hours of coma, and at almost midnight he was very awake and very bored. 

Nagito turned on the TV, but finding nothing good on at the time, he simply left it on for background noise as he picked up his phone, quickly checking his small, private social media accounts and messaging as he scanned his brain for what he could do. Nagito thought he would enjoy the break he was getting from work because of his injury, but so far he'd been mostly bored, and since the wound on his stomach still wasn't healed, it looked like he had a lot more of being bored to look forward to. 

Gently, Nagito reached up and pulled out the small pony tail that he'd made of his (slightly greasy) hair, and flopped backwards onto the sofa, gazing blankly around his small living room. 

The piece of paper on the mantelpiece caught his eye, white paper glowing in the dimly lit room, phone number clearly scrawled on it red. 

There was something to do. 

Nagito sprang up and grabbed the slip of paper, then slipped down onto his couch again, retrieving his phone from where it had been abandoned and on the floor. For a second, he was concerned about the bloody fingerprints on the paper, only to remember that he had been bleeding when he first held it, so they must be his. 

Nagito checked the number five times after he'd typed it into his phone, just to make sure he didn't accidently text some random person. Even though he was doubting if this was Hajime's actual number, he still didn't want to fuck up his chance at speaking to his enemy again. 

Enemy. Recently, Nagito had been thinking about that word a lot. 

Nagito saved the number under "Hajime" then, without even thinking, he typed a message and hit send. 

N: hey 

It took Nagito a minute of eager waiting to remember that it was nearly midnight, and that Hajime probably wasn't awake. He sighed and dropped his phone. What was the point of it anyway? Hinata hated him, probably even more now that he'd shot him in the leg. Did I think we actually had a chance of something good between us? thought Nagito. He shook his head. 

Buzz! 

Nagito jumped as the vibration echoed through his sofa, grabbing his phone and bringing it's glowing screen closer to his face as he registered the single new notification.

1 new message from Hajime. 

Nagito audibly gasped, fingers fumbling as he typed in his password and the message. 

N: hey 

H: ..Who is this 

"Fuck." Nagito realised that he'd included no indication of who he was. Great going, Nagito. Quickly, he typed again. 

N: komaeda,, 

After pondering over which name to use, he hit send. Hajime replied almost instantly this time.

H: Oh. So you found my note then. 

Nagito lay down, phone in one hand as he pulled a blanket over himself. 

N: yeah,, thanks 

H: For what? 

N: for your number i guess 

H: It was nothing. 

Nagito groaned quietly as he sensed the conversation stop. 

N: how is your leg? 

H: I've only just got off of crutches. Luckily it wasn't that bad. How is your stomach? 

N: i had to have stitches :v it's nearly healed now. 

Was the :v face too much? 

H: Yeah sorry about that. 

N: same. 

Nagito had a thought. 

N: Are those bruises you had okay? 

H: The older ones, yeah. You gave me quite a few more. 

N: well i did my job well then. 

H: Yes you did. 

Wow! Was that a... compliment? Nagito grinned. 

N: i try. so how's stuff at oogami? 

H: Why do you want to know?

N: because part of my job includes finding out about the enemy, and also i've ran out of conversation topics 

H: Well I don't want to get sacked, so I can't tell you, sorry. 

N: but getting sacked wouldn't be such a bad thing. i can't wait until i can leave this job. 

H: Trust me, I'd leave if I could, it's just I have no where else to go. 

N: same actually.. i'd leave and then probably get arrested. idk what else i'd do anyway. i've not really got any special talent. 

H: Yeah. And I don't have any normal friends or family that I can go to. 

N: yeah me too... this job kinda sucks doesn't it. 

H: It more than "kinda" sucks. It's terrible. 

N: i used to want to be an artist, but things happened, and i gave up on that

H: I wanted to be a writer, but that doesn't pay very well and I was never very good at it anyway. 

N: it's funny how quickly dreams shatter. 

H: Yeah... 

Nagito looked at the clock. Three am? Wow, time sure passes quickly, he thought, and now, because of a combination of bright phone light and conversation, he was suddenly tired again. This night (morning?) was looking up. 

N: i've got to go now. talk to you in the morning? 

Nagito had to stop himself from writing "tomorrow". 

H: Yeah okay. Bye. 

N: bye :) 

After that, Nagito took himself and his rather large collection of blankets to his bedroom, collapsing on his bed and wrapping the duvet around his cold feet before falling asleep surprisingly quickly for once, only mildly aware of the fact that the TV was still on downstairs. 

That night, Nagito dreamt of Hajime. 

The dream was long, complex and hazy, like all dreams, with many moving faces that Nagito recognised but couldn't identify, that communicated with him and moved around him, but they were easily forgettable. The only part of the dream that stood out to him, crisp and clean and sharp and crystal clear, was the part with Hajime; He was wearing that same blazer and shirt combo that he'd been wearing those five weeks ago when they'd met in the office block, with those tight trousers that showed off his ass. Except, he'd lost his tie, the green one that he always wore, and he was asking Nagito to help him find it because it was lost somewhere in the big Victorian house that they'd met in for some reason. As they searched, the house seemed to become bigger and bigger, until clouds formed in the ceiling of the hallways and doors were miles wide, and they still hadn't found that tie, until Nagito realised it was around his own neck. The dream ended with Hajime strangling Nagito with the tie until he fell into a black, dreamless sleep. 

Buzz! 

Nagito jolted upwards, hands scrambling for the knife that he kept in his bedside table until he realised that it was only his phone that had awoken him, not some relative of one of his victims coming for revenge. He noted the time, 10 am, as he entered his password and checked his notifications. 

1 new message from Kazu. 

Nagito opened the message, rubbing the sleep dust from his eyes as it loaded. What could Kazuichi want at this time in the morning? 

K: boss called a whole staff meeting and wants you here? can you make it?

Nagito blinked as he registered the situation. Whole staff meeting? Something must have happened. And he was supposed to be taking time off for injury. Must be important.  
N: i'll be there in half an hour. 

Quickly, Nagito dressed himself in a pair of jeans and an old Nirvana t shirt that he usually wore when he was ill, and, because it was colder than usual that day, he put on his green hoodie as well. Taking only the essentials (money, phone, pen knife), he left his small apartment and caught the first bus he found, regretting not bringing something to eat. The bus was crowded with school children, who were loud (be presumed that this was because it was nearly the end of the school year) and Nagito sat by himself, gazing out of the window blankly until he reached his stop, barely taking in any of the journey. 

From the outside, Fuyuhiko headquarters looked like a normal office block, grey brick with rows of symmetrical windows, large black doors that Nagito knocked on with the golden door knocker. Nagito pulled his hoodie slightly closer to himself as he patiently waited. 

"Ah! Nagito! It's you!" 

Sayaka Maizono held the door open for Nagito, and he quickly stepped into the empty hallway, wiping his feet as he entered. 

"Yeah it's me.." Nagito glanced at Sayaka, who smiled sweetly and pushed a strand of her dark, almost blue hair behind her ear. 

"Everyone's waiting for you, up in the meeting room.." Sayaka scurried up the large staircase, Nagito following behind as they walked, down the halls left, then right, through grey walled corridors decked out with a range of photographs, paintings and drawings that lined the walls until they reached a black door identical to the rest, with Meeting Room printed on it in silver. Nagito had been in this room quite a few times before, but it was not often used.

Sayaka, once again, held the door open for Nagito, and, thanking her quietly, he stepped in. 

Twenty two pairs of eyes flashed upwards in his direction as Nagito entered the room, and he was almost immediately greeted by a shout. 

"Nagito! Dude, you made it!" Kazuichi jumped up and ran over to Nagito like an excited child, pulling him in a warm bro hug. He grinned. "How too doing, bro?" 

"Not bad." Nagito shrugged and smiled in his vague sort of way as Kazuichi clapped him on the back. 

"Aw, modest as always? C'mon dude, you got stabbed, surely that was-" 

"If you wouldn't mind, could you maybe do your catch up later? We've got an important meeting to hold." Kiyotaka interrupted, folding his arms and muttering something about "extremely childish" to Mondo who sat next to him at the large mahogany table. 

"Yeah, but Nagito got stabbed, isn't that-" 

"We heard you the first time, Souda." smiled Sonia, beautiful and calm as always, as Kazuichi quickly shut up and apologised, sitting down again. 

"Komaeda. Please take a seat." Kuzuryuu Fuyuhiko was sat at the top end of the huge table, in a notably larger chair than the ones of which he was gesturing for Nagito to sit in, with Peko, as usual, sat to his left. "Ishimaru is right, we've got a very important meeting to hold." 

Nagito slipped into the only chair he found free, in-between Angie Yonaga, who smiled quickly at him, and Mukuro Ikusaba, who merely nodded. Nagito was about to get the attention of his friend Makoto, who was sat on the other side of Angie, but suddenly Kuzuryuu began talking again. 

"You're all probably wondering what this is about, seeming as it's been a long time since we've had to have a whole staff meeting at Fuyuhiko. Some of our newer employees," he glanced towards Himiko Yumeno, who only joined a few months before, "Have not even witnessed a whole staff meeting before. That is how rare these occasions are."

"So are you gonna tell us what this fucking meeting is for or not?" snapped Miu Iruma, who was hidden out of site behind Nekomaru Nidai, so that all Nagito heard was her voice. Despite that, it was still obvious who it was. 

"I was just getting to that." retorted Kuzuryuu, as Peko sent a glare in Miu's direction. "I've called you all here today for a meeting to discuss Oogami."

Nagito looked down at the table, lips parting slightly. Oh dear. 

"As I'm sure you're all aware, we here at Fuyuhiko have been rivals of such with Oogami for many years now. In fact, the rivalry goes back many years to my grandfather and the old owner of Oogami. It's a fight that's been going on for generations, and part of your job at Fuyuhiko is to continue that fight." People around the table nodded in agreement, and Nagito felt his empty stomach fill up with dread. If anyone found out about Hajime... 

"However, recently, Oogami have been stepping up their game. In the past two months alone they've interfered with five kills, and the consequences of these have been anything from having to bail someone out of jail," Touko Fukawa, sat on the opposite side of the table to Nagito, looked down angrily, "To employees having to take time off due to injury given to them by Oogami workers." 

Nagito felt eyes from all over the room land on him as whispers hissed among the Fuyuhiko employees, different accounts of what happened to him, sympathy, anger. Nagito kept his eyes focused on a specific pattern in the wooden table. 

"And so, of course, as anyone in the situation would do, we need to retaliate. And Kirigiri has thought up a plan to help us do just that." 

The room was eerily silent as Kyouko stood up. 

"As our major goal is to eliminate as many Oogami workers as possible, it should seem easy to just take them out ourselves, us all being experienced killers. However, that is the worst possible thing to do." Nagito tried to not freak out over the fact that he might be forced to 'eliminate' Hajime, keeping his eyes glued to the table as Kyouko continued.  
"Therefore, what we are going to do is have other's eliminate them for us." 

Murmurs spread around the room. 

"The simplest way to do this is by releasing their personal information online. Full names, adresses, phone numbers, things like that. Then, either the police or relations of their victims seeking revenge come forward and get rid of them." She smiled calmly, "Leaving us unaffected and innocent."

Nagito looked up and glanced around the table at peers smiling, nodding, all convinced that this plan will be their best tactic against Oogami yet. Even the normally stony, quiet types like Kirumi and Byakuya [AN: please note that this is the imposter togami bc this will be relevant in the story later thanks] looked pleased, so Nagito knew that this meant something, and that worried him even more so. 

"So, how exactly are we gonna be getting their personal info anyway?" yelled Kaito from the bottom end of the table. 

"Yeah! Don't Oogami do stuff to hide it like you do here?" added Tenko. 

Kyouko's expression didn't change. 

"That is what I was just getting to. To carry out this plan, we will require some of you to stalk certain Oogami workers to find this information. You will be alerted if we want you to do this when the time comes." 

More murmuring circled the room. 

"What if we get caught while stalking them?" asked Hiyoko.

"I don't think that will happen." Kuzuryuu stood up. "You all know better than that." More nodding from around the room.

"What if Oogami fights back? What will we do then?" Celes asked, smiling innocently in that way she always did, as if she knew everyone's secrets. Nagito shivered. 

"That will be for another meeting." Kuzuryuu scowled. "Meeting over. You're all free to go." 

Chairs squealed against floor as everyone got up, chattering as they bustled for the door, Nagito blankly following, caught up in his thoughts.  
With my luck, I bet I'll be made to stalk Hajime, he thought, barely even noticing as Gonta pushed past him. As he made for the exit, he heard a voice call him. 

"Komaeda? A word please." 

He turned to see Kuzuryuu, accompanied by Peko, arms folded. They knew, oh god, he was going to get sacked and- 

"Don't worry, you're not in trouble. Just wanted to say that your injury time off is over now, and if you feel up to it you can come into work tomorrow." 

Nagito let out a quiet sigh of relief. 

"Okay, Sir." He smiled. "Is that all?" 

"Yeah. You can go now." 

Nagito made for the door, hoping to go home quickly and go back to bed, when he was suddenly tackled by Kazuichi again. 

"Yo, Nagi, wanna come get some lunch with me and Makoto?" 

Nagito looked up at a grinning Kazuichi and a smiling Makoto, internally cringing at the nickname. At least it was better than simply "Nag", he thought. He was going to turn down the offer, too busy with his thoughts, when his stomach violently grumbled and he remembered how hungry he was. 

"Sure." he smiled, and Kazuichi grinned even wider. They were just walking down the stairs when a familiar voice greeted them. 

"Mind if I tag along?" 

Ouma walked down the stairs next to them, childishly skipping as always, his dark purple hair bouncing on his shoulders. 

"Uh, sure." Kazuichi shrugged and Ouma beamed. 

"Yay!" he sidled over to Nagito, who raised his eyebrows. What was Ouma up to? 

"How's your stomach?" Ouma gave Nagito a quick hug as they left the Fuyuhiko headquarters. 

"Almost healed." Nagito replied, "Luckily the cut wasn't that deep."

"Aha, you and your luck." Kazuichi slapped his arm playfully. "Remember that time that someone's dog leash broke and the dog chased a cat knocked you over then we both fell into the road?" 

"Yeah, I remember that..." chuckled Nagito, running a hand through his hair. "You were so angry..." 

"Ah, but we got over it!" Kazuichi adjusted his beanie. "Yo, Mak, where's this place you told me about then?" 

"It's just down here," Makoto pointed down the road they'd just walked onto, streets lined with shops busy because of the time of day. "They do such good burgers, me and Kyouko went there last week and it was amazing." 

"You're always hanging out with Kyouko." said Ouma, smirking. "Trying to get some are you?" he wiggled his eyebrows. 

"No way!" Makoto laughed lightly. "Kyouko's just a good friend." 

"You suuuure?" teased Ouma.

"I'm sure." laughed Makoto. 

"Isn't it obvious that Kyouko's into Celes anyway?" added Nagito lightly. 

"What, really!?" gasped Kazuichi. 

"It makes sense..." pondered Ouma. "I mean they do talk a lot, and they get put on jobs together all the time. I think it would work." 

"Eh, I don't know if I can see it happening.." shrugged Kazuichi. "They're both so... cold? If ya get what I'm saying."

"I'm sure underneath Celes isn't that bad. Kyouko definitely isn't." said Makoto. 

"I dunno if it'll ever happen, but it'll be cool if it does." Ouma shrugged. "Is this the place?" 

"Yep" Makoto said, and they walked into the bright, open restaurant, marvelling at it's tasteful brick walls and artful mismatching chairs. They chose a smallish table by the big window, and sat down, almost instantly being greeted by a waiter who gave them menus and took their drink orders; Nagito ordered a diet coke, as, unlike Kazuichi, he preferred to avoid alcohol as much as possible. He didn't like the feeling of not being able to focus and the extra fuzziness it added to his world. 

"What're you gonna get, Nagito?" Ouma said, sat opposite from him with Makoto on his left. 

"I'm not sure yet..." 

Casually, Nagito flipped through the menu, looking for something, anything really, that interested him. He wouldn't really describe himself as a food kind of person, as he rarely found the time or effort to eat, and usually lacked interest in food. In the past he'd even been accused of being anorexic, but he knew that wasn't true; He didn't not eat to try and lose weight, he simply never felt like eating. It was nothing big. He mostly lived off breadsticks and peanut butter, and he was happy like that. 

Next to him, Kazuichi was having a mental breakdown over choosing between a the spicy ribs or the beef and brie burger. 

"Are you ready to order?" 

The waiter was back, and it turns out that only Makoto was ready. After taking his order, the waiter turned to Ouma. 

"Uhhhhhhh... Can I get... Uhh..." Ouma looked up at the young waiter, and Nagito saw a sparkle grow in his eye. "Your number?"

The waiter rolled his eyes. 

"Something on the menu, kid." 

Ouma gasped in mock offense. 

"Excuuuse you! I'm not a kid! I'm twenty one! I just look young!" he said, louder than was necessary. 

"Ouma, shut up." Kazuichi butted in. "Can I get the spicy ribs with chips please." 

"Sure." the waiter wrote down Kazuichi's order then turned back to Ouma. "You ordering or not?" 

"I'll have the chicken burger with... onion rings." Ouma smiled sweetly as the waiter, finally, turned to Nagito, who suddenly realised he hadn't even read any of the menu. 

"Uh... I'll have the same as him.." he gestured to Ouma. 

"Okay!" the waiter wrote down Nagito's order then left. 

"Ouma, what the fuck?!" Kazuichi hissed. "Why would you just ask for someone's number like that??" 

"What? He was cute." Ouma shrugged. "C'mon, he was cute, wasn't he? Back me up, I know none of you are straight." 

"I-I'm straight!" said Kazuichi and Ouma rolled his eyes. 

"Really?" 

"Yeah! I've never liked a guy in my life!" 

"Uh huh." 

The table fell silent for a second. 

"He was pretty cute..." said Kazuichi quietly. 

"Yeah..." Makoto nodded. 

"See! That's why I asked!" 

"You didn't succeed though, did you?" Nagito smirked. 

"Yeah, but I tried." Ouma raised his eyebrows. "And that's more than any of you did." 

"True." Makoto smiled. "But he wasn't really my type anyway." 

Ouma's eyes lit up. 

"And what is your type, Makoto?" 

"Oh, I don't know, maybe someone blond..." 

Nagito let himself drift off as the other three fell into an uninteresting conversation about what their "types" were. Nagito wondered if he had a "type", but quickly got rid of the idea. He didn't usually like people at all, so there was no way he could tell. He'd had a girlfriend once, when he was fifteen at school, but she dumped him after a week. Nagito couldn't even remember her name. He wondered if it was normal that he never really liked anyone. Could he possibly be asexual? 

No. 

Nagito suddenly reminded himself that he did like someone. Just because that someone was off bounds and ridiculously dangerous didn't mean that they were nothing. 

Maybe Hinata was his type. 

Nagito didn't talk much for the rest of the meal, only quietly thanking the waiter when he brought him his burger, which actually turned it to be quite nice, and silently nodding and smiling along with the other three's conversation. They somehow spent the entire meal talking about former relationships and who at work they thought was hot. Nagito found it boring but also stressful, because it made him think of Hajime, and the more he thought of Hajime, the more he felt like seeing him again, which he knew was the worst thing to do at this moment in time, with all that was happening with Oogami and Fuyuhiko. He cursed himself for not being able to keep his feelings in his pants back at the office building. But it was worth it, right? he thought. Nagito was sure it was definitely worth it. He'd never felt so strongly about a person before, and to be honest it a scaring him a lot. 

"Hey, you gonna get dessert?" Ouma poked him in the arm.  
Nagito blinked. Dessert? 

Oh, the meal. 

"Um, I'll pass." He smiled casually. "I'm not really in the mood..." 

"Same." Ouma sighed, "I don't wanna get fat, now, do I?" He patted his belly jokingly. 

"Well, if you guys aren't getting dessert then I won't either." Kazuichi scratched his forehead. "Do you wanna split the bill?" 

"Yeah, okay..." 

The waiter returned, and this time Ouma left him alone as they all payed. Nagito barely even registered what the waiter said, not really aware of anything until Kazuichi got up to leave, chair scraping the floor painfully. 

"...Yeah, I'll be in tomorrow so I'll see you then, I guess..." He headed for the door. "See ya!"

"Bye!" Ouma and Makoto both waved. 

"Well I guess I should get going as well..." Makoto stood up, stretching slightly. "See you tomorrow." 

"See you tomorrow!" Ouma put his jacket back on as Makoto, too, left. Nagito looked up. 

"Oh, I should probably go too, shouldn’t I..." he looked around for a second, as if looking for something to do, then stood up. 

"Hang on, I'm coming with you! I need to talk to you about something.." 

Nagito felt his eyes narrow. "What is it?" 

"Let's start walking and then I'll tell you, okay?" 

"Right." 

Together, they left the café and set off down the busy street, having to swerve and carefully maneuver themselves to avoid bumping into people. As they waited by the traffic light crossing, Nagito struck up conversation. 

"So, what did you want to talk to me about...?" He asked, watching the traffic light. Ouma shrugged. 

"I don't know, you just seemed... Troubled? You've been quiet all day, and I know you're not really a talky person but you're not normally silent... Is something up?"  
Nagito shook his head and smiled. 

"I'm fine. I'm just tired." What was he supposed to say? I hooked up with a person I'm meant to hate and now I might have to kill them? 

Ouma groaned. 

"C'mon, that's the most common excuse in the book. Something is wrong. Please tell me, I might be able to help." The traffic lights beeped, clear to cross, and Nagito started off across the road as the cars stopped. 

"Pleasee! Tell meeee! I want to help!" Ouma chased after him, arms waving as he ran. Once he'd caught up with Nagito on the other side of the road, he began to question him frantically. 

"Did something happen? With your injury? Is that's what's wrong? Or did something happen on the last job you did?" 

Nagito sighed. "Yes, but-" 

"So, something happened! What was it? You get caught by someone, or-" 

"Ouma, please shut up!" Nagito snapped, running a hand through his hair angrily. 

"...I'm only trying to help." 

"Well, you can't help." 

"At least tell me what it is... Surely it will feel good to get it off your mind?" Ouma's voice sounded genuinely concerned now. 

"But... I can't tell anyone. That won't help at all..." Nagito suddenly felt tears spring to his eyes. No... 

"You can trust me." 

Nagito looked Ouma right in the eye. He was right, it would feel better if he didn't keep it all bottle up inside, but... What if he told? Ouma could be quite a gossip when he wanted to. 

"Promise you won't tell?"

"Cross my heart, hope to die." Ouma nodded, determined look on his face. 

Checking to make sure nobody else from Fuyuhiko was around, Nagito lowered his voice and bent in closer to Ouma, hoping he wasn't making a grave mistake. 

"So... on my last job, there was, uh, a guy from Oogami there. The one who stabbed me. And..." 

"Yeah?" 

"Uh, I don't know if you've heard of him, but he's called Hajime Hinata? I've known him for quite a long time, we've met quite a lot over the years I've been working at Fuyuhiko..."

"The name does ring a bell. What about him?" 

"Well, uhh..." Nagito took a deep breath. "We had sex." 

Ouma's violet eyes widened. 

"You- With a- Oogami? Oh god, I can see why you don’t want anybody to find out... Don't worry, your secret is safe with me!"

Nagito smiled, but it quickly faded into a frown. 

"No, it's not just that..." 

"Mm?" 

"It's..." Nagito sighed. "He gave me his number and we've been talking and I think I actually like him? I mean, I've found him attractive for basically as long as I've known him and there was always this weird flirtatious atmosphere between us but I've never acted on it before but I just couldn't resist and he feels, or felt, the same way except it's awkward because we can't because if anyone found out we'd be sacked and probably get into lots of bad stuff but... I don't know, I think I love him?" 

Nagito took a deep breath while Ouma gaped. 

"Oh." For once, he seemed lost for words. "Wow... you're in deep shit, aren't you?" 

"Not helping..." Nagito whispered, wiping aware the tear that threatened to fall from his eye.

Ouma's face fell. 

"Look... If you want to keep seeing him, keep seeing him, okay? You know what they say, enjoy life, YOLO, that kinda stuff. If it's what you want, do it." 

Nagito nodded, then stopped. "What if... what if anyone finds out?" 

"If that happens, I'll try and help out any way I can, but, you know, you're not gonna be tied to Fuyuhiko forever. It's a shitty job, we all agree on that, but it isn't forever. I'm sure... I'm sure it'll end out fine."

"Either it'll end out fine or I'll end out dead." 

"No! Don't say stuff like that!" Ouma stopped as they came to the end of the street they were walking down. "I've gotta go the other way now, my house is this way, but... please, if you want him, keep on talking to him. And know that if you ever need anyone to talk to about this, you've got me."

Nagito nodded. "Yeah... thank you, Ouma." 

"It's no problem." He began to walk off his own way. "It's gonna be okay, remember that!" 

"Yeah..." Nagito turned and set off down the road, numbly stumbling until he reached his flat. Locking the door behind him, he crashed into his bedroom and collapsed on the bed, tears streaming down his face. That was... too much emotion for one day. And it was only three in the afternoon. He buried his head in a pillow, letting it soak up his tears.

Buzz! 

He felt the vibration against his butt, as his phone was in his pocket. It surprised him, and he slowly picked it up, bringing it to his face and squinting at the light of the screen as he turned it on. 

1 new message from Hajime. 

Nagito almost choked, sweaty fingers slipping on the screen as he opened the message faster than you could say "Kamukura Kamukura Yas Queen". 

H: Hey. How was your day? 

As Nagito began to type, he forgot all of his problems. He forgot everything that happened, and stop imagining everything that could happen. For the first time that day, he felt calm. Because, at that moment, all that mattered was Hinata. 

And he wished the moment would never end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello thanks for reading ! this isn't very good i'm afraid, i'm definitely not a writer, sorry. but i'd appreciate reviews and kudos if you didn't hate it that much :) there are a few things about the au that i'd like to mention by the way,,  
> so, every single character that appeared in this chapter, apart from hinata, works for fuyuhiko, so any other characters from the basic classes of danganronpa (that's naegi's class, komaeda's class, and ouma's class) work for oogami. i've evenly split the three classes, so it's safe to assume that any character that wasn't in this chapter is part of oogami.  
> also, i've decided that i'm going to try and update this every week, but i might not always be exactly on time, so please be understanding if i don't post :))  
> if any of your want to find me on other social media, my tumblr is @quhinn and my instagram is @hetalinati
> 
> anyway, thank you again for reading, and i really hope this wasn't that bad.


	3. back on the bullshit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was about time that Nagito started working again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: murder, kind of mild gore, injury, possibly upsetting stuff
> 
> song for this chapter: i'm so sorry, by imagine dragons

(one week later, monday )

Instead of getting the bus as usual, Nagito walked all the way to work that day.

Above him, the sky was dull, grey-white rolling clouds cushioning the earth and obscuring the sun. The reflection of the bright white sky made Nagito's silvery hair look like it was glowing, and he felt like a fantasy hero as he walked down the street, the thought of having mystical powers adding a slight swaggered confidence to his step. This was quite a difference from his normal slouch, yet Nagito recognised the posture from whenever he was around Hajime, how his back arched, his nose upturned and his chest puffed out; It was a gait of dominance, of calm power, a graceful swagger to go with dark smiles and raised eyebrows. He wondered how Hajime would react to seeing him normally, slumped in sweatpants and a t shirt, with even messier hair than normal and half-shut eyes; Human, vunerable, lovable and plain. 

Nagito liked that thought. It was confortable and warm and fluffy, and it seemed like miles away. It became even further away when he entered Fuyuhiko headquarters, the dim lighting of the building instantly dulling the glow of his hair. Nagito headed up the stairs, passing Sonia who smiled as she tried not to drop the massive pile of files that she was presumably taking to Fuyuhiko in his office on the ground floor. At the top of the black carpeted stairs he turned left, past the door of Kyouko's office, past the door of the file storage cupboard, past Himiko and Tenko, who were quietly talking, until he finally reached his destination. 

Nagito gently pushed the black door, reading the words Staff Room as it swung open. He stepped in and it closed behind him with a soft clunk.

Nagito scanned the room. It was unsurprisingly quiet, since it had only just gone eight in the morning, but there were still a few people; Byakuya was sat in one of the armchairs, reading a newspaper, and Celes was at a table writing in a notepad and drinking a steaming beverage from a mug (probably animal blood or something, Nagito thought). In the kitchen area, Touko was making herself a cup of coffee sleepily as Nidai searched through the fridge, and over in the far left corner of the room Miu was casually applying a heavy coat of mascara in a pocket mirror. 

Nagito sat down on the nearest couch, dropping his bag on the floor, pulling his phone out of his back pocket and undoing his jacket. For August, the weather had been pretty cold lately... or maybe it was just Nagito. He always did seem to feel the cold more than others. Maybe he was too skinny?

2 new messages.

Nagito tapped on the messaging app of his phone and found two highlighted text threads. The first was from Hajime, who's contact he had renamed "Alex" in hope of passing Hajime off as an old school friend or something and in fear of one of his coworkers recognising Hajime's name. The other was from Ouma, and Nagito smirked as he saw the little eggplant emoji that the latter had forced him to put in his contact name. 

He opened Hajime's message first, of course. 

H: Hey

Nagito smiled for the first time that day. He felt like Hajime had become more friendly with him in the week that they'd been texting, to the point where he even wanted to start a conversation! This was both a good thing and a bad thing: On one hand, he was becoming closer and closer with Hajime, which please Nagito greatly. On the other hand, it meant his safety, job and life were even more at risk than before.

Nagito typed his answer quickly. 

N: good morning :) did you sleep well? 

After he hit send, Nagito went back and checked Ouma's message. 

O: hiiiii if any1 asks where i an can you tell them that i've got a really bad migraine and i cant come into work thx xoxoxoxoxox

O:*am

Nagito sighed. Ouma might be good at it, but Nagito could tell when he was lying.

N: what are you doing? 

Ouma replied suspiciously quickly.

O: i told you, i've got a migraine. i'm ill. its a thing that people do.

N: really? 

O: yes really. ik it's hard to believe but even elite villains like me i get sick.

N: fine. don't blame me if you get into trouble for skiving off .

O: as if i'd skive off !!1! is that really what you think of me ? i'm offended :'"""(

N: :/

Nagito closed the text thread. He wasn't sure if Ouma was for real or not, but he guessed that was the thrill of being friends with the guy. Never a dull moment with Ouma, a fact that Nagito knew from being friends with him for nearly six years. Six years... wow, time had sure flown. It seemed like so long ago that his parents-

"Uh, Nagito and Celes," Nagito's head shot up to see Peko at the door, face emotionless as always. "Kuzuryuu wants to see you."

Nagito blinked for a second, then stood up, taking two steps towards the door before Celes swayed past him quickly. He hurried after her dark bunches, making sure to stay slightly behind her as they both followed Peko down the stairs and towards Kuzuryuu's office. Peko held the door open for them, and Nagito let Celes enter first, (I say "let" but Nagito didn't really have a choice) before going in. 

"Please sit." Kuzuryuu gestured to the chairs in front of his desk. "I've got a job for you." 

"Both of us?" Celes sat down, daintily, on the right chair, so Nagito took the left as Peko shut the door behind them and took a seat beside Kuzuryuu.

"Yes." their boss said. "Since Nagito's been on injury leave, and there's two people to take out, I thought it would be best if someone went with him." 

Celes and Nagito both went to protest at the same time.

"I don't need help I-" 

"If you think for one second that I'm going to babysit him-" 

Kuzuryuu's hand slammed down on his desk with a loud smack.

"Shut up. Unfortunately for you two this is already happening." he handed them each a slip of paper with their instructions, which Nagito pocketed quickly. "There's a car waiting outside. Go home once you're done."

Nagito knew their was no point, but that didn't stop Celes from arguing.

"Sir, why does he have to come, surely it would be more efficient and quick if you just sent me-"

"I need him to get back into jobs. He's one of our best killers and we can't afford to have him out of the game, especially at this point in time. I would expect you to understand this, Celestia. Now get the fuck out of my office."

Nagito was quick to obey. He turned to Celes as she followed him out of the room. 

"Uh, I need to go get my stuff from my bag..." he waved his hands in a weird motion up towards the staff room and Celes rolled her eyes.

"I'll wait in the car. If you're not there in five minutes I'll leave without you, okay?" she smiled. Nagito hated that smile so much. It made him think of how fucked he'd be if Celes ever found out about Hajime.

"Sure." 

Nagito barely had time to nod at Sayaka as she passed him dashing up the stairs, because he didn't doubt that that Celes would go without him. Bursting through the staff room door, he almost crashed into Kiyotaka who screamed and shouted at Nagito for running as he scooped up his bag and jacket from the couch where he them and sprinted out the room. Nagito's pace quickened, and all he saw of Naegi as he left Kyouko's office was a brown blur before he practically fell down the stairs, sliding out the door and onto the street where he saw the black car waiting. Nagito was panting by the time he collapsed in the backseat.

"Hm. You made it on time." Celes sounded,and obviously was, disappointed. "Drive, Kaito."

Nagito did up his seatbelt as Kaito, sat in the front, started the car and began to drive. Placing his bag carefully between his legs, Nagito pulled the slip of paper out of his pocket and read through it.

Matthias Kølher and Abel Kølher (married). They live on 77 Griffiths Street, and should be in the house between 7 am and 11:30 am. Enter through the back door of their conservatory (the key is underneath the big red plant pot with tomatoes growing in it) and try and leave minimal evidence. Get rid of them with as little struggle as possible, but do be aware that they are both ex-military and will possibly put up a fight. Leave their bodies in the house. 

A normal person would have instantly wondered who wanted these two people dead so much. Nagito knew better than that. 

"An ex-military couple, huh? This will be interesting." he addressed Celes as he put the piece of paper away. 

"Yes. Please, let's make it quick though.I don't want any fuss." Celes didn't even look at him, opting to stare out of her window instead.

"Right.." 

Nagito unzipped his bag and pulled out his knife, his lighter and his gun. Carefully, he placed the knife in the inside pocket of his jacket, the lighter in the front pocket of his jeans and the gun in his main jacket pocket. Nagito felt eyes on him, and he turned to Celes, eyebrows raised. 

"You need that many weapons?" she asked. Nagito shrugged.

"I like to come prepared." 

As Kaito stopped the car, Nagito took a moment to look out of the window and survey the area. Luckily, it looked like a quiet neighbourhood, with most of the houses having large front gardens and closed curtains, which lowered the chance of them being seen. Celes appeared to have noticed this too, as there was a small smirk on her face. 

"Shall we go?" she opened her door and swung her feet out first, before standing up on her pointed heeled boots. Like every movement she made, it was precise, smooth, and glamorous. She walked, talked and acted like a princess, no, a queen, and there was no way to ignore it. 

Nagito got out of the car rather clumsily as Kaito rolled down his window.

"I'll wait here, okay?" 

"Okay." Nagito nodded, walking backwards after Celes as she took off down the pavement. 

"We won't be long anyway." Celes said, head forward. "Come on, the house is only down here." 

Nagito walked alongside Celes until they reached Griffiths Street, when they crossed the road to get onto the side of the street with odd numbered houses. Celes counted the house numbers out loud quietly as they walked.

"Sixty-seven... Sixty-nine... Seventy-one, Appleby, what a tacky name... Seventy-three... This one hasn't even got a number on the door, but Seventy-five... Ah. Seventy-seven." 

They stopped.

Number Seventy-Seven, Griffiths Street was ordinary. Boringly ordinary. The walls consisted of even, identical red bricks, the windows were all rectangular and made out of white plastic. The door was a light wood, with a shiny gold door handle and an opaque window. The small garden in front of the house was well kept, with lots of tulips growing in flowerbeds and recently mown grass, and the living room window had the blinds shut. It looked like every other house on the street.

"How dull." Celes opened the gate and walked up the little path, and for a second Nagito thought she wad going to knock on the door. Instead, she turned right, pushing her way past the bushes that lined the side of the garden and down a small gap between the house and the fence. Nagito followed quietly, trying to make as little noise with his converse on the stone floor as possible, extremely aware of how eerily silent it was. Yeah, it was early in the morning but surely some people woke up before nine? Nagito assured himself that he was just being paranoid. 

The back garden was bigger than the front, but it was still well looked after, with the same neat hedges and, again, the large amount of tulips. Obviously this couple had a thing for the flowers.

Nagito heard a strange scraping noise, and turned to see Celes moving a large red flowerpot, like the one described in the note, with a grubby silver key underneath it. Celes picked it up in her gloved fingers, turning it over a few times to examine the interesting patterns left by rust and dirt, which showed that this key wasn't often used. For a second, Nagito wondered if the person who ordered the assassination was a close friend of their soon-to-be victims, to know information like this. He decided he'd rather not know.

The key was stiff in the door, but it worked, and soon they had entered, moving quickly from the conservatory into what appeared to be a dining room/ kitchen area. There were dirty plates left on the table, but the lights were off, so Nagito assumed that no one had been in here since last night. As the passed through the kitchen, tiptoeing, they heard a noise coming from down the corridor that led out of the room. Although muffled, it was obviously the sound of a television. Nagito pulled out his gun, and so did Celes. 

The door creaked quietly as Nagito brushed it, and for a second he tensed up, before realising that their victim probably didn't hear over the TV. Coming closer to the noise, they saw the door to what was probably a living room wide open, flashing screen lights coming from within. Celes stopped abruptly by the door, gun raised, and Nagito almost crashed into her, gaining his footing seconds before disaster. 

Celes met his eyes, and Nagito was taken aback by the dark scarlet colour of them. How had he never noticed that before? Celes held up her hand, three fingers up.

"Three," she mouthed, raising her gun.

"Two," she lowered a finger and turned her body towards the door, readying herself to pounce, almost.

"One." 

Head down, gun close, Celes sprinted round the door, Nagito close on her tail, feet loud on the fake wood floor.

In one second, reality went weird; Time felt slower, smoother, but everything seemed to be in high detail. Like someone snapped a video camera into extreme focus, but by doing so it became slow and lagging. Nagito lost awareness of his own body, forgot what he was, like he was numb. His feet were pressed against the floor but he felt like he was floating in a place where noise and time didn't exist. A calm place, ironically different from the reality. As Nagito raised his gun, he took in the scene before him.

The man was young, in his late twenties maybe, with spikey blond hair that appeared to have been gelled up. He was half sitting, half lying on the sofa with a blanket over his knees, previously focused on his glowing laptop screen, head jerked upwards, mouth and eyed wide with shock. Nagito, in his otherworldly state, noticed every detail of the man's face, down to the smile crinkles under his eyes and the freckles on his nose, the scraps of red nail paint on his fingers and the small crumbs of previously eaten toast by his lips. 

Celes' bullet flew towards him in slow motion, spinning with a low swoosh. Closer and closer it travelled, slipping through the air like sand slipping through a sand timer, quickly counting down the time until The End.

The man didn't look sad. He didn't appear shocked, or scared, or angry. Nagito was sure that, if he had the time to, the man would have smiled.

The End got to him before he could.

Suddenly, Nagito crashed back to reality, knees bending as he felt the floor again, sounds of the gunshot wringing in his ears as hid head snapped up. There were feet coming down the stairs.

"Matthia-" 

This time, Nagito didn't even look. The other man burst through the doorway, body tense and blurry, and Nagito flicked up his gun, and without even properly aiming, pulled the trigger. 

The man, who Nagito assumed was Lars, crumpled to the floor, blood pouring out of his now mess of a face. Nagito looked back at the other man, Matthias, limp in his own, bigger pool of blood, and quickly looked away as he tried not to choke. Why couldn't he seem to move? 

Nagito's eyes darted around the room, but Celes didn't seem to be there, and everywhere he looked, all he could see was evidence of the lives that he'd just destroyed; Pictures of the couple when they were younger, letters from family and friends, notes written from one man to the other, reminding them to go get some more milk, or take out the trash. Birthday cards, memorials from places they'd been, treasured ornaments and damaged, well loved books. Happy things, things once full of life, now dark and empty. He'd done that... Nagito shook as his breathing grew erratic. He'd ruined something perfect, something pure. He'd ruined the one thing that he himself longed for. 

Happiness.

"Nagito!!" Nagito's eyes managed to focus on Celes, gripping him firmly by the shoulders, shaking him, eyebrows furrowed. "Nagito, what's wrong?" 

Nagito exhaled slowly. 

"I.. I don't know. I'm..." Why was he stuttering? What was wrong with him??

"We need to get out of here." Celes let his shoulders go and instead grabbed his wrist, dragging him over the body of Lars, through the kitchen, out of the conservatory and round the house until they finally reached the street. It was surprisingly bright and cold, and Nagito quickly did up his jacket as the wind blew. He looked up to see Celes looking at him weirdly. 

"Uh... I'm sorry. I don't know what happened back there, I just-" 

"No, not that-" Celes hissed, staring, Nagito realised, behind him.

"What is it?" he looked over his shoulder but saw nothing apart from the empty street. He glanced back at Celes, confused."What-"

"We need to go this way." Celes pushed past him, walking to opposite way to wear Kaito was waiting. Nagito just stood there.

"But the car-"

"He can wait, can't he? Come on." Nagito hurried after her. For someone in heels she could sure power walk. 

"What is it?" he said as he finally reached a pace to walk beside her. She didn't look away from the street ahead.

"I saw a person watching us."

"A person? Like, in one of the houses?"

"An Oogami person ." Nagito's stomach dropped, and instantly that voice was there in his head. What if it was Hajime?

"Uh, do we have to -" he didn't even know what Celes wanted to do to this person. 

"Yes." she replied anyway.

"But we were told to stay away from them..." 

Of course, Celes didn't care. Why would she?

"I'm not letting her get away." Celes turned left, down an alleyway between two rows of houses. 

"...Her?" Nagito walked slightly behind Celes, letting her take the lead. He didn't want anything to do with this.

"Yes. I recognised our spy as Chiaki Nanami, an Oogami killer." 

Chiaki Nanami? Was that the girl with the multicolored dyed hair? Or the tall one with big boobs? Nagito always struggled to tell the female Oogami killers apart. At least it isn't Hajime, he thought. 

"Oh..." the alleyway was overgrown and messy, empty bottle and rubbish on the moss covered floor. Celes stopped as they came to a break in the path, which another alleyway lead off of. 

"She went down here." Celes whispered, pressing up close against the wall, Nagito behind her. Quietly, they both peered around the corner.

A small, harmless looking girl in a black hoodie leant against the wall of the alleyway, typing on her phone, her strawberry blond hair tucked behind her ears. So that was Chiaki. Nagito always thought she was called Kaede, but he guessed that was someone else.

Nagito heard a quiet rustle, and looked down to see Celes pull out her gun. He almost gasped out loud.

"What are you doing??" he mouthed at her, but she ignored him, closing one eye in concentration as she aimed her gun at Chiaki. Nagito wanted to snatch the gun out of her hands, but he was scared of Chiaki hearing them, and scared that Celes might shoot him. He shook his head wildly. What the hell did Celes think she was doing?

As a last resort, Nagito reached forward for the gun, but Celes kicked her leg back, hitting him in the crotch. Nagito groaned, crashing to the floor as he watched Chiaki's head whip up from her phone and look right at them. 

Bang! 

Not anymore. 

Nagito rolled onto his side, eyes shut tightly.

"Celes, what the fuck.." Celes looked down at him. 

"What?" she said, folding her arms.

"We weren't supposed to attack them..." said Nagito, sitting up and rubbing the back of his head. "Kuzuryuu specifically said-"

"So what? I got rid of one of them. That was our goal wasn't it?" 

"Yeah, but we weren't meant to-"

"No one saw us did they? Calm down."

"What if Kuzuryuu finds out!"

"Oh, come on. Surely you've done stuff behind Kuzuryuu's back. We all have."

Nagito froze as his mind flew to Hajime faster than me hurriedly trying to write half of this chapter at three am.

"B-but this is different!!" he blurted out, knowing very well that what he did was far worse than this. 

"How? How is this-" 

Celes was cut off by a tall figure falling, seemingly from the roof of the house next to them, onto her. Nagito jumped back a few steps, hand on his gun, as the creature locked Celes to the ground. At first, Nagito questioned whether the creature was human or not, until it finally became still enough for him to recognise as a young woman, dressed in all black with tanned skin and dark brown hair. An Oogami killer.

Celes let out a muffled help, struggling wildly as the woman, who Nagito somehow remembered as being called Akane (he thought so anyway) fumbled to pull out a gun and put it to Celes' head.

"You- You killed her!" she growled, voice low for a female. "Fuyuhiko are attacking innocent people now, hm?" 

Celes tried to say something, but Akane was squeezing her throat so Nagito decided to say something instead. 

"Chiaki was hardly innocent." he pointed his gun at Akane's (large) chest. "Please get off of her." Just get out of here right now, he thought.

Akane's eyes scanned his face, and she loosened her grip on Celes' throat slightly, causing the latter to gasp for breathes of air, colour draining from her cheeks.

"I know you. You're that Komaeda, who shot Hajime."

Hajime.

Nagito stiffened, hoping his expression didn't change that much as he scrambled for words to say.

"... Yes, that's me." 

Akane kept her gun firmly against Celes' head, her face flickering between emotions; sad, angry, confused, upset. Nagito wondered how close she was with Chiaki. Did she just witness the death of her best friend? Perhaps even a lover? Or was she just a coworker... He would never know.

"Put down your gun or I'll shoot her." she gestured to Celes, who made a desperate sounding mmhm noise.

"Put down your gun or I'll shoot you." Nagito twirled his own gun in his hand lightly. Like he would actually shoot her. Nagito didn't even know how many bullets he had left, and he was wary that he might end up in the same, dreamlike situation as earlier. Also, they were under strict rule not to kill, and they'd already broken that rule once today, and Nagito desperately wanted to stay out of trouble.

His words were an empty threat, but Akane didn't seem know that. To Nagito, she seemed like the type of person to rely on their strength and physical power to get them out of things, opting for violence over negotiation. The type that didn't think before acting, the type to become flustered by confusing words.

Nagito was a master at confusing words.

"Do you think Chiaki deserved to die?" Akane opened her mouth to speak but Nagito cut her off. "Sure, she was a mass murderer, with many kills on her hands, but did she herself deserve to have done to her what was done to others?" Nagito was on a roll now. There was no stopping him. "Some would argue yes, it's a good payback for her sins, but then surely someone else will become a sinner, doing exactly what they were punishing her for doing. However, in this situation, Celes would easily be considered a sinner already, so does this count as a sin on her behalf? Or is this in fact a good mark on her record, taking out another sinner to neutralize your own sins. Or, is she just fighting fire with fire. Does taking out another killer make you a good person, or do you remain a killer just with a hint of redemption?"

"W-what?" Akane's eyebrows were furrowed, her face was befuddled. It wad working.

"Or was this kill actually pointless? Was Celes simply in it for the fun, a sick kick in her boring life? Chiaki's death will not affect anything big, Oogami still have plenty of killers left. The only possible damage it could have done was emotional. Someone just lost a friend, perhaps even a girlfriend. So Celes has probably just made things worse for herself. Because now Oogami will be angry at her, her personally, so her own life was at risk. Did she know that before she shot?"

Nagito felt his free hand scrunch up into a tight fist.

"Did she think before she acted? Did she truly think? Or did she just go with what she wanted. Perhaps this is an odd kink of hers, perhaps she wanted this all along." 

Nagito felt like crying.

"People do this all the time- They don't think. They can't hold back what they want, so they act, even though they know they'll be punished. They're so desperate for someone that they can't have -"

Nagito grinned. 

"That they'd happily risk their own lives." 

In the moment of silence that followed, Nagito realised that he'd said 'someone' and suddenly regretted everything.

Akane was breathing deeply, shoulders heaving, tears in her eyes. She glared at Nagito. 

"You're crazy. You're fucking insane."

Celes didn't even have time to cry out before the bullet hit her stomach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is like a week late but no one is really reading this so i guess it doesn't matter 
> 
> i hope this isn't too bad
> 
> feedback would be really great bc i'm not very good at writing and i'd like to improve (:
> 
> if you have any questions or literally just anything about this fic hmu my tumblr is @quhinn and my instagram is @hetalinati


	4. help me i can't stop staring at your eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Have you ever seen sometime so pretty that you started crying?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: nothing really too bad in this chap, just mentions of killing/violence 
> 
> song for this chapter: liquid confidence (nothing to lose) by you me at six

"You fucking idiots!" 

Six years working for Kuzuryuu, and this must have been the angriest Nagito had ever seen him. 

"The one thing I told you not to fucking do! Why didn't you try to stop her?" 

"I did..." Nagito shifted in his seat, finding himself sat before his boss for the second time that day, only this time alone. Oh, and this time his boss was yelling.

"What was she thinking?! Now Oogami is going to be suspicious, she's going to have to lie low in case anyone comes for revenge, and she's in hospital! That is obviously not what we fucking need right now!"

Kuzuryuu was livid. Spit was flying from his mouth as he ranted strings of swear words, and his cheeks were flushed crimson. Nagito was sure that, if it were possible, steam would come out of his ears like a cartoon character, and his eyes would turn red. Nagito hoped that wouldn't happen.

"She was probably just... eager to start taking out Oogami people, you know..." it was a weak attempt at an excuse, but it appeared to at least calm Kuzuryuu down.

"Well, at least neither of you died." he sunk into his chair, rubbing his eyes. "Ugh... It seems like things keep happening to all our top killers... Touko keeps getting caught by the cops... Sonia's been assigned to follow one of the Oogami killers, so she's out of jobs... Kirumi keeps having problems with her health... You only just got back into work, Celes is going to be off of jobs for at least a month, and Ouma didn't even show up today. What's going on..?"

"Oh, Ouma said he had a migraine today so he couldn't come in..." Nagito said, clearing his throat as he watched a wave of disbelief sweep over Kuzuryuu's face.

"Hm. Like I'm going to believe that.." 

"That's what he told me. I have no idea what he's doing..." Nagito wanted nothing more than to get out of this office and go home.

"Hhf... Guess I'll talk to him tomorrow..." Kuzuryuu sat up, stretching out his arms and yawning. It was a surprisingly loud yawn, for such a short person, Nagito thought. He wasn't quite sure what type of yawn he'd been expecting from Kuzuryuu, but certainly not that; It seemed too melodic. But oh well, Nagito guessed that he was wrong. There are some people who it is easy to imagine what their yawns will be like, and Kuzuryuu wasn't one of them.

"You're free to go.." Kuzuryuu waved to the door vaguely with one hand, resting his chin on the other. "Go home, or whatever. No need to come in tomorrow.. I'll get someone to contact you next time a job comes up." 

Nagito's hair bounced up and down as he nodded. 

"Thank you, sir." he stood up and left the room quickly, slinging his bag over his shoulder as he crossed the empty corridor and went out of the door onto the street, finally letting himself breathe deeply through his nose to try and calm himself down a little.

Checking his phone, Nagito noted that it was 12:35 pm, almost lunchtime. He also noted that he had two new messages, but he decided that food should be his priority since he hadn't eaten that day, so he headed into town. 

It was a smallish town, with enough shops, but not too many, and cobbled roads with old-looking houses built up around them. There were people walking about, of course, since it was daytime, a variety of people with different faces, families and stories. Nagito disliked being surrounded by people. He always feared that one of them may be a relative or friend of one of his victims, or whether they might become one of his victims themselves in the future. But the town was nice anyway. He could see why Fuyuhiko chose to have their headquarters here, and since Oogami's base was also near (they didn't know the exact location, because they had recently moved and kept things very secretive) he guessed that the area was good for... this type of business.

Nagito was just passing a coffee shop, one which he didn't plan on entering, when he saw a shine of dark purple hair. 

Unmistakable.

Ouma waved at him though the window of the café, hair glowing in the soft mid-day light, toothy grin spread out across his face. Nagito took in his tight jeans and oversized grey sweater; He didn't look very ill...

It took about thirty seconds for it to register in Nagito's mind that Ouma was beckoning him inside the café to join him. For a second, he felt like turning down the offer, but then he remembered that he had been looking for food, and he felt like he should tell Ouma what happened earlier. Also, it was just beginning to rain, so he pushed open the door and went in, instantly greeted by a jingling bell and the warm smell of coffee (the smell of coffee always annoyed Nagito, because it always smelled so much better than it tasted.)  
"Hi!" Ouma waved again as Nagito approached, presenting Nagito the chair opposite him with a flourish of his hand. "Come join me!" 

Nagito sat down with a quiet smile.

"I thought you were ill.." he said, placing his bag by his feet. Ouma laughed, and Nagito watched the corners of his eyes crinkle up.

"Well that was kind of true! I did have a headache and stuff, but I feel better now." Ouma placed his hands down on the table, lacing his fingers together. "Are you on lunch break now? Isn't it a bit early?" 

"Uh, yeah, about that.." Nagito did a quick survey of the coffee shop, just to make sure there was no one noticeable that could be listening. Luckily, Ouma had chosen quite a quiet table, distanced from the rest, so Nagito considered it safe to go.

"I had a job this morning, but some stuff kind of went wrong.."

Ouma's eyes sparkled with interest and he nodded quickly, so Nagito went on.

"Uh, so since it was two people we needed to take out, Celes had to come with me, and she was super pissed about that."

"Oh, I bet she was." Ouma tucked a section of his hair behind his left ear. "She's fucking terrifying."

"Yeah, she is." Nagito continued. "So we got to this house, took out these people, that was fine." he casually left out his mental breakdown. "But then, we were just leaving when Celes saw Chiaki Nanami? That one girl from Oogami." 

"Is that the one with the multicolored hair?" Ouma asked.

"No. She had, like, strawberry blonde hair? I think that's the word, anyway..." Nagito shook his head slowly.

"Strawberry blonde.. Nah, doesn't ring a bell." Ouma brushed a piece of his hair out of his face. "As far as my gay ass is concerned, all of the Oogami girls look the same, so I'll take your word for it." 

Nagito chuckled. It was a relief to know that he wasn't the only one who struggled to distinguish Oogami female from female.

"But, uh, yeah... Celes started to follow after her, and I just followed because, you know, it's Celes. And then we followed her to this alleyway between these houses and Celes shot Chiaki. I tried to stop her, but... The shot was to the head so I'm pretty sure Chiaki died instantly, and I just wanted to get out of there but then suddenly this other Oogami woman came along. Yeah, turns out Chiaki wasn't alone, and this other woman, I think her name is Akane, attacked Celes."

"Uh, question?" Ouma interrupted. "Is Akane the one with the..." he made circular motions with each hand in front of his chest. It took Nagito a moment to understand what he meant.

"Uh, yeah. So she, like, pinned Celes to the floor and had her gun pointed at her head, but in the end she shot Celes in the stomach. But at the same time I got her in the arm, so she stumbled and I pushed her into the wall, picked up Celes and sprinted back to the car. I think she might have tried to chase after me, but she was probably bleeding too much. So now, Celes is in hospital and Kuzuryuu is pissed because things keep happening to the top killers."

The two let a moment of silence pass between them.

"Wow." Ouma smirked. "What a day to miss work." 

"Yeah.." Nagito laughed quietly, through his nose, a strange sphsuphs sound as air pushed from his nostrils. He always seemed to laugh like this, in slightly awkward situations, and honestly he was a little insecure about it.

Ouma shook his head quickly, causing the chunk of hair that he'd previously tucked behind his ear to fall back over his face and the rest of his slightly greasy locks to fan out around his head, back to their classically messy position. 

"I suppose we should go order something or they'll probably think we're suspicious." he jerked his head towards the counter. "Have you eaten already?"

Nagito, per usual, found himself confused for a moment before he registered what Ouma was saying. Oh yeah, food. That thing.

"Uh, no, but I'm not really-"

Ouma smacked Nagito's hand, probably harder than he intended to.

"You need to eat more Nagito!" he scolded, half mockingly, half serious. "Everytime I see you, you look weaker and weaker!" 

Despite shaking his head and rolling his eyes at Ouma, Nagito had to agree with what he was saying; He never had looked, or really been, healthy. He'd had asthma for as long as he could remember, and was diagnosed as anaemic a few years ago, as well as his notoriously bad immune system and all the injuries he'd suffered working over the years. When he looked in the mirror, Nagito saw a pale, fragile creature, with malnourished skin, a bloodless face and cracked lips, sporting muscles from the physical ability it took for his job, yet barely any meat on them at all. Mix that all up with a wheezy, soft voice, soulless eyes, scary pigmentless hair and forever clicking joints and what did you have?

A mess, that's what.

"I guess I should eat something..." Nagito shrugged.

"Yes! Good! Now come on, let's go get some food!" Ouma dragged Nagito by the sleeve to the counter, where he bought a himself a latte and a panini, and Nagito pointed at a bottle of water and a sandwich and Ouma bought them too. After that, they returned to their table.

"You owe me like £5 now." said Ouma as he emptied five sachets of sugar into his coffee (Nagito wondered how on earth he could drink something as sickly sweet as that, but Ouma always did have a sweet tooth so he didn't question it.) Nagito looked down at the sandwich that he'd gotten. Egg mayonnaise; Not bad. Actually, quite good. Nagito enjoyed eggs.  
He opened the packet and took out one of the halved pieces of sandwich, taking a small bite out of the side, making sure to get a bit of the bread crust in. It tasted good, and suddenly Nagito didn't regret eating. Opposite him, Ouma was basically deepthroating his panini, noises and all (probably on purpose, knowing him.) and Nagito sighed, shaking his head in mock disgust. 

Nagito let his eyes trail behind Ouma, to the shop front, watching the people pass by the cafe through the front window. So many people; Normal people. To Nagito, the idea of a boring life like theirs was amazing. Imagine not having to worry about being found out by the police, or being killed by an enemy, or having to live with so much blood on your hands. Imagine being able to be with the person you love without having to worry about your life being at risk. Things that normal people had, and probably didn't even think about, were the things that Nagito most longed for. How he wished he could be one of those normal people, walking down the street, going out to cafes on their own without a care in the world.

A person entered the shop, and Nagito heard the bell on the door ring. He looked up, expecting to see another normal person who he could by jealous of.

Instead, Hajime was stood there, carefully unbuttoning his coat.

Wait, what?

Nagito blinked five times, but he still saw Hajime. Was this real? This couldn't be real. How was he supposed to find out if it was real or not?

"Ouma." Nagito hissed, bending down slightly so he would hopefully be obscured from Hajime's view by the other boy. "Ouma, turn around." 

"What?" Ouma shot him a puzzled look and his head whipped around to look. He turned back quickly. "What is it?" 

"Do you see him?" Nagito's eyes flicked back up to Hajime, who was casually brushing rain off of his coat. 

"See who?" Ouma turned around and looked again. "The guy with the brown hair? What about him?"

Nagito inhaled quickly. So Ouma could see him too. He must be real. Oh god, the real Hajime Hinata was in the same café as him...

"I... Ouma, that's Hajime." he muttered.

Ouma eyes widened, and his lips parted in a mischievous O.

He turned and looked again, and this time Nagito watched Hajime clock Ouma staring, and give him a weird look. Then, suddenly, Hajime's eyes were on him.

Hajime froze, face startled, body tense, like he was unsure on what to do. The rain outside got heavier.

Nagito smiled, eyebrows raised, shoulders high in a shrug.

"Wow, he's quite good looking, isn't he? I can see why you like him." 

The confused look on Hajime's face was so funny that Nagito almost burst out laughing.

Ouma swivelled in his seat, grinning at Hajime.

"Hey, why don't you come join us! Grab a chair or something." he nodded at their table welcomingly. Hajime looked like he was going to say something, but Ouma cut in.

"Come on! I'm sure Nagito wants to see you again!" 

"O-Ouma! Nooo..." Nagito felt like an embarrassed teenager out with a loud, obnoxious parent. He addressed Hajime, blushing "Y-you don't have to, Hajime! J-just ignore him!" 

To his surprise, Hajime smiled softly, and proceeded to drag one of the chairs from an empty table to join them, sitting down quietly with a careful look around the cafe.

"Hello, Nagito." he smirked, putting his coat on the back of his seat. "And.. Ouma?" 

"Yep, that's me!" Ouma beamed. "Nice to finally meet you, Hajime!"

"Yeah, uh, nice to meet you too." 

Nagito knew he should probably say something, but he couldn't stop looking at the tiny droplets of rain water in Hajime's hair and thinking how pretty they looked, like Hajime's hair had a silver shimmer to it like a fantasy princess or something.

"Hey!" Ouma poked his arm, harder than was necessary. "Stop staring, you look like an idiot." 

Nagito's head snapped up.

"Ah, sorry..!" he looked down, then back up to see Hajime's expression. He was expecting him to be angry, or confused, or freaked out.

To his surprise, Hajime was giggling.

"Nice to see you too." he said, and Nagito wondered whether he quoted what he said to Hajime when they met at the office building on purpose.

"Haha, yeah." Nagito met eyes with Hajime, and instantly knew that, if he could, he would stay like this forever. There was such a depth, such a green sparkle, pools of calm emotion that existed in a universe of their own, warm and cold and happy and sad all at once. So incredible and overwhelming Hajime's eyes were, that Nagito was left breathless, as if movement would shatter the precious ornamental glass that they appeared to be made of. Nagito knew that he must be staring, as Ouma put it, like an idiot, again, but that didn't seem to matter; Hajime had the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen.

"Are you okay?" Hajime asked him a question, and Nagito freaked out because he suddenly had so much to say, but none of it the answer, and he was still trapped in the surreal grasp of Hajime's gorgeous eyes. Quick, say something, something normal, fast, yet also witty and funny and chill and-  
"You have stunning eyes." Wow, way to go Nagito. He cringed slightly as he watched Hajime's face closely for a reaction.

It was the most divine thing Nagito had ever seen.

First, his lips parted, soft, velvety skin, sticking to each other slightly before splitting, forming a casual pout through which Nagito could see even, neat teeth that came more into view as the corners of his mouth raised slowly, slowly, smile lines carving between his blushing cheeks and lips, dimples sinking in like valleys in his skin. Then, his eyebrows soared up, sending ripples through his forehead and letting more and more light cascade into his eyes. God, his eyes, his magnificent, enticing, exquisite eyes, mirrors into another world that reflected sunbeams and lit up everything that mattered, glowing lakes in a deep forest, surrounded by eyelash trees and rolling eyelid hills. 

It was truly the most devastatingly perfect face in the entire cosmos. Nagito realised that he'd touched that face, he'd kissed those lips, he'd done things to make tears leak from those glorious gems of eyes.

That thought made Nagito start crying.

"Nagito?" 

There was a hand on his shoulder. His hand. Nagito looked up, vision quivering with tears that threatened to escape, and saw him, face lined with concern, Ouma to his right, equally worried. 

"Nagito..." His hand! It was so warm against Nagito's cheek, and so so soft, and it was holding him firmly like it never wanted to let go. And his face was so much closer to Nagito now, details that he never even dreamed of noticing coming into perfect view, like the tiny mole under his right eyebrow, or the light dusting of freckles on latte coloured skin, which of course made Nagito cry even harder. 

"What's wrong..?" Ouma's voice was louder than he expected.

"Nagito... What is it?" Such a calm voice! How could Nagito not answer to a voice like that?

"You're... You're so beautiful." It was barely even a whisper, but he heard it. He heard it, and so did Ouma, and both of them smiled. 

Then Hajime Hinata hugged him.

And for six seconds everything was okay.

"I'm sorry." Nagito snivelled after Hajime let go of him. "I just... Work was kind of bad today..."

"It's fine." Hajime reassured.

"Yeah." added Ouma. "And our job is never really good, you know." 

"Mm." Hajime patted Nagito's arm as he wiped his nose on his sleeve and nodded. 

"I just got... So emotional over this kill..." Nagito muttered, embarrassed. "I don't know..."

"Shh." Hajime continued to rub his arm soothingly. "That's okay. It's human... They can't expect us to all be feelingless."

"Yeah." Ouma sipped his coffee. "Maybe it's just because you've been really anxious lately."

"That's probably it..." Nagito sat up a little, sniffing. 

Hajime smiled, but he still looked worried.

"I'm gonna go get something to eat now, but I'll come back, okay?" he nodded in the direction of the counter.

"Yeah, of course." Nagito straightened up.

"I'll look after him." Ouma grinned.

"Good." and with that, Hajime pushed back his seat and left in the direction of the counter.

Ouma was looking at him but Nagito tried to ignore it, instead taking a large gulp of water.

"This... This isn't good." Ouma spoke quietly, almost to himself.

"What?" Nagito looked up.

"You two!" Ouma looked genuinely exasperated. "You're so... perfect."

"Huh?"

"The way that you both look at each other! The way that he touched you! Jesus Christ, if this were any other situation, I would insist that you get married on the spot!" 

"G-get married?" Nagito almost choked on his sandwich. There was no way that Hajime would marry him!

"Yes! You two need to be together..." Ouma shook his head sadly. 

"But we can't..." Nagito sighed.

"Surely there's something we can do..." Ouma stared vaguely at the wall, deep in thought. "You could kill Sakura Oogami."

"No. That's definitely not what we need." Said Nagito quickly.

"You're right... How about...You could both get fired." 

"If we get fired we'll probably have our details released. We'll go to prison for life." 

"I guess..." Ouma was still deeply thinking.

"Hajime wouldn't want to be with me anyway." Nagito rolled his eyes. "There's no point."

"Shut your mouth!" Ouma snapped. "He's obviously into you, dipshit."

"No way..."

"Yes way!!" Ouma looked furious. "Didn't you see the way he smiled at you? And the way he hugged you??! The average hug lasts three seconds but that hug was at least six seconds long! And for god's sake, didn't you guys fuck? Come on, Nagito, I think it's pretty obvious that he likes you."

Nagito blinked. "That was just a one time thing, and it was ages ago anyway."

"Oh, please, Nagito. Look at him. He's fucking hot. He probably attracts loads of men and women. And he chose to have sex with you. I'm trying to help you here."

"It was probably just nothing-" Nagito stopped as Hajime returned, placing a coffee and a sandwich down on the table before sitting down.

"You okay now?" He asked. Nagito noticed that, unlike Ouma, Hajime hadn't got any sugar to put in his coffee. He decided to try and remember that.

"Yeah." Nagito nodded. "Sorry about all that."

"Again, it's fine." Hajime took a drink of his coffee, squinting at how hot it was. "As long as you're better now."

Ouma shot Nagito an 'I told you so you fucking dumbass' look as Nagito blushed. Ouma looked a lot like he was going to say something awkward, so Nagito quickly came up with a conversation topic, picking the first thing he saw.

"What sandwich did you get?" He asked, peering at the unopened packet in front of Hajime.

"Oh, it's egg mayo." Hajime replied, picking up the sandwich and tearing the plastic. Nagito felt his face light up.

"I got that too!" He exclaimed, picking up his own sandwich (there was only one half left now).

Hajime grinned. 

"Egg mayo is good, right?" 

"Yeah. It's maybe even my favourite sandwich filling." Yes! This was good! A... conversation! 

"Hm, I like it a lot, but I think my favourite filling is probably... crisps and nutella." 

"What?" Ouma pretended to choke. "Crisps and nutella?! What the hell?!?" 

"It's weird, yeah, but it's actually really nice." Hajime laughed as Ouma gaped at him.

"Jesus Nagito, here I was thinking you'd actually befriended someone normal for once." Ouma pushed Nagito's arm jokingly.

"It's not that bad, trust me!" Hajime said, defensive. 

"It is a bit weird... But it sounds like it could work." Nagito pondered, not taking his eyes off of Hajime. The more he looked, the more beautiful Hajime became as more and more details were unveiled. 

"You should try it sometime." Nagito felt a thrilled feeling in his stomach as Hajime spoke directly at him. How blessed he was!

"I will!" Nagito smiled in what he hoped was a cute way, although it probably looked creepy or fake. However, Hajime smiled back, so he guessed he did something right. As long as Hajime was happy, Nagito thought he'd be okay.

Bing!

What was that? Nagito's head flicked up, looking around. The door? A bell? An alarm?

Hajime picked up his phone, and Nagito felt stupid. It was a notification sound.

Relaxing, he sunk down in his seat and took another swig of water. This was okay. No, wait. This was good. He was in a warm place, with nice food, and, most importantly, Hajime. He felt calm. Happy, almost.

"Oh..." 

Chair scraped against the floor as Hajime backed away, knuckles white as he held his phone in a vice like grip, face suddenly empty of colour, eyes wide, horrified, and hair standing on end. 

"Hajime?" Nagito froze, reaching towards him with a single hand.

"I... I have to go..." Hajime stumbled to his feet, shoving his phone in the pocket of his coat as he pulled it on. "I'm sorry... I n-need to go, right now.." 

Ouma gaped as Hajime pushed his chair under the table.

"Hajime, what's wrong?" Nagito stood up teaching towards him, gently grabbing his shoulder. "Hajime..." 

"Nagito, I'm sorry..." Hajime did that life-ending thing where he stared directly into Nagito's eyes. "I'm so, so sorry, but I really need to go."

"What's wrong? Please, I might be able to help." Nagito didn't move his hand from Hinata's shoulder, and bravely looked on into Hajime's eyes, despite feeling like his legs were jelly.

"You can't.. I can't..." Nagito felt his heart breaking as tears sparkled in Hajime's eyes, Hajime's glorious eyes, eyes that didn't deserve to be dulled with tears, eyes that could stop the world spinning with that sad, sad look in them. Quickly, Nagito hugged Hajime, feeling his tense body tremble as his tears sunk into the fabric of Nagito's t shirt and through to his skin, burning like acid leaking from the those bright, bright eyes, chemical, magical and shining, now staining white cotton as the eyes drained of life after one sharp hit that smashed the delicate glassy covering to release whatever glowed from the inside. When Hajime pulled away, Nagito felt part of himself leave with him, drifting further and further away as Hajime walked out of the cafe and disappeared into the grey of the now pouring rain, droplets disguising the tears that continued to fall from eyes, once beautiful gems, now empty and sad.

And Nagito could barely breath as he wondered:

What sort terrible, awful, horrific thing could have happened to dull the most beautiful eyes on the planet?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is only a day late this time im sorry ! also idk this seems really rushed bc ive been kind of busy lately (probably because it's my birthday tomorrow so yay) .
> 
> but thank you for reading anyway! feedback would be really really good :) also if you have any questions/anything you want to say about this just hmu on my instagram (@hetalinati) or my tumblr (kokichimaeda) . thanks :)


	5. perhaps things might go okay for once

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We all have that one annoying friend...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: murder, but it nots too violent, not really bad chapter
> 
> song for this chapter: do i wanna know? by the arctic monkeys

Ouma had told Nagito to wait at least a week before texting Hajime about what happened on that rather dramatic Monday afternoon. Apparently, if Nagito were to text too soon, he would appear "stalky" and nosy, and Ouma assured him that Hajime probably wanted to be left alone, however concerned Nagito was for him. Nagito didn't get it... He wanted to check if Hajime was alright, since he was extremely upset when he left the cafe in the pouring rain, but Ouma insisted that he hold back. And, since Ouma had promised that he would help get Nagito and Hajime together, because he "knew about these kind of things", Nagito figured he should just go with it and attempt to leave Hajime alone for a while. 

 

He lasted three days. 

 

The text was short, a simple "hi,, how are you?" sent around midday so there was no chance of it disturbing Hajime's sleep. Nagito felt a wave of guilty relief as he sent it; Ouma was going to be pissed, but at least he could check in on Hajime. 

 

An answer didn't come for a full day, which Nagito spent lounging around in his flat, reading Scott Pilgrim and catching up on world news. Kuzuryuu had said that he'd be in contact when a new job arose, so Nagito just guessed that there were no jobs or someone else was taking them. There was nothing he could do to change that, but he still felt ridiculously bored. 

 

Hajime replied at around five pm on Friday the 18th of August. Nagito almost dropped his phone in his excitement to read the message. 

 

H: I'm okay, thanks. I'm sorry for leaving so suddenly on monday... 

 

No! He shouldn't be sorry! Nagito should be sorry for not helping him or doing something, anything, wrong! Hajime should not have to apologize!! 

 

N: don't be sorry ! its not your fault 

 

Wait... Isn't there supposed to be an apostrophe in "it's"? 

 

N: *it's 

 

N: im story for the typo 

 

N: *sorry 

 

N: aaaa i'm so so sorry hajime 

 

Nagito was completely sure that he'd just fucked up any chance he had of ever being with Hajime, with or without Fuyuhiko and Oogami. Jesus, why did he have to mess everything up... 

 

H: ... It's fine, it's just a typo. Everyone makes typos. 

 

What? Hajime didn't think he was weird, or stupid, or awkward? Why would he be so kind? 

 

H: Also, about Monday. It was my fault. I shouldn't have left like that.. It was so rude. I swear, you didn't do anything, or say anything, just... Something happened and I... 

 

Nagito desperately wanted to question Hajime on what had happened, but he knew better than that. 

 

N: it's totally fine! really as long as you're okay 

 

H: Well... I'm not really okay right now... Something quite bad happened.. 

 

Every single word of that sentence felt as painful to Nagito as a kick in the stomach to a girl with period cramps feels. Hajime... Was not okay... He needed to help him. How could Nagito help him? 

 

N: ,,, is there anything i can do to help ?? 

 

Something. He had to do something. Nagito knew he wouldn't be able to sleep, eat or function properly for the next week knowing that Hajime was not okay and he hadn't done anything to help. 

 

H: I can't tell you much because I'm pretty sure I'd get fired but I could really do with someone to talk to right now. 

 

That meant it was something Oogami related... Okay. 

 

N: sure ! you can talk to me anytime you want 

 

H: Would you mind if I called you? I feel like I haven't spoken to a real life person for ages.. 

 

N: yes of course ! 

 

Nagito waited patiently for Hajime's contact, named "Alex" to avoid suspicion, to pop up on his screen as he tried to contain his low-key excitement. He was getting to hear Hajime's wonderful voice again! And Hajime trusted him enough to be able to talk to him about things! He was going to be able to help! Nagito felt extremely blessed. 

 

Alex is calling... 

 

Nagito picked up instantly, probably quickly enough that Hajime noticed that he was waiting for the call. 

 

"Hey." Nagito smiled, then remembered that Hajime couldn't see him and stopped, then remembered something Ouma mentioned about being able to hear a smile in someone's voice, and grinned again. 

 

"Hi..." Hajime's voice was croaky and low, like he hadn't been using it much, with a slight waver to it that suggested that he'd recently been crying. Nagito was instantly extremely worried. 

 

"You sound kind of..." Nagito didn't want to be rude. What if Hajime got upset? He trailed off, but luckily Hajime seemed to get it. 

 

"I know... I think I've got a cold or something, so that might be a bit of why..." Hajime's voice broke slightly on the word "cold". 

 

"Oh... You... You sound a bit like you've been crying..." Nagito was terrified that he was acting annoying or nosy or too interested, basically just terrified that he'd do something wrong, because he really didn't want to upset Hajime anymore. 

 

"Ha... Is it that obvious?" Hajime sniffed, chuckling quietly. "Yeah... I have..." 

 

 

Nagito lay down on his bed, pulling his blue fluffy blanket over his legs and resting his head on his pillow. 

 

"I wish I could hug you right now." Nagito didn't even think before the words left his mouth, smoothly, calmly, and even though he instantly regretted it he felt like it was probably the right choice. 

 

"... Hug me?" Hajime muttered softly. Nagito was sure if he could see Hajime right now, he'd be blushing. Perhaps curled up in a ball, with lots of warm clothes on, in the dark, with tear stains on his face and a blush on his cheeks. How... heart-breakingly adorable. 

 

"Yeah. You sound like you need a hug..." 

 

Nagito always acted like he didn't like physical contact; He backed away from people who stood close to him, always sat far away when he had to share a seat with someone. He had a habit of flinching whenever people brushed him or touched him, and acted uncomfortable and disgruntled when hugged. However, this was in fact a lie, a bad habit of an act to try and get people to stay away from him. Nagito always felt extremely touch starved, if that was a thing, and although he tried to ignore it he craved the feel of other people. not just anyone though, specific people. People who he felt comfortable with. Maybe Ouma, but mostly just Hajime. And right now, he desperately wanted to hug Hajime. 

 

"I... I think I need a hug, to be honest..." Hajime laughed, hoarsely, sadly, like he knew that would never happen. Nagito hated that. 

 

"I'll give you a hug! Next time I see you I'll give you a really really good hug. Promise!" 

 

"You don't have to do that, Nagito..." 

 

"But I want to! You need a hug, so I'll give you a hug." Nagito didn't get why Hajime was denying it, even though he knew he probably would have said the same thing if he were in Hajime's situation. 

 

"Hah...Wow..." Hajime breathed, barely even a whisper. 

 

"What is it?" 

 

"You really like me, don't you?" 

 

Took you long enough to notice. 

 

"Yeah. I like you lots and lots." Nagito smiled, a little sadly, but still a smile. 

 

"I... I like you a lot too." Hajime cleared his throat... embarrassed? Oh my god that's cute. "Honestly... thank you... Uh, things have been really bad recently, and..." 

 

Hajime sighed. 

 

"...You're the first person who actually managed to cheer me up." 

 

Nagito tried not to hyperventilate. He'd.. He'd done something right? Hajime was happy... because of him? Wow... Wow, wow, wow... 

 

"I'm so happy that I could make you happy!" Nagito stumbled on the words in his excitement. "Thank you!!" 

 

"Really, I should be saying thank you, not you." chucked Hajime, and Nagito heard him shift his position slightly as his phone microphone crackled. "Really. I appreciate it a lot." 

 

"It's no problem !!" Nagito's voice was all high pitched, kind of weird, but he was so hyped and so nervous that he barely even noticed he was doing it. 

 

The conversation fell to a stop, and Hajime yawned loudly. 

 

"Nng... I'm gonna try and sleep now..." he mumbled, and Nagito heard the sound of Hajime shift from whatever position he was in. 

 

"Okay! Sleep is good." Nagito acted happy even though he was sad that Hajime wasn't going to be able to talk to him anymore. "I hope you sleep well." 

 

"You too." Hajime replied. "Well... Goodnight, I guess." 

 

"Good night." 

 

Hajime hung up and Nagito felt his entire body relax, flopping his head back onto the pillow and snuggling up under his covers for warmth. That... that was good. A good conversation? That was new. He almost felt tired now, and shuffled to his side, ready to sleep, when his phone suddenly buzzed in his hands. 

 

1 new message from Kazu. 

 

K: yooo kuzu says he's gotta job for you so you should come in tomorrow at like 9:30 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is like two weeks late and very badly written sorryyyy  
> also this has nearly 1000 hits ???? what???  
> and yes i changed the chapter titles and the fic name (ik it's bad to do that halfway through a fic but 'a tragic situation' was just some shit that i made up on the spot ) 
> 
> anyway this is very rushed and messy but hopefully the next chapter will be a lot better because i've been looking forward to writing it for ages :))
> 
> thank you for reading ! if you have any questions/ any feedback, tell me in the comments or message me on my tumblr (@kokichimaeda) or my instagram (@hetalinati) i hope this wasn't too bad !


	6. this is illegal shut up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a date , some shoes , rain .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: nothing too bad in this chapter, but there is a homophobic slur used at one point so if youre sensitive to stuff like that then please be aware !

(friday september 1st, 6 am)

"So what were you planning on wearing?"

"Ouma, is this really necessary?"

Nagito did have to admit, Ouma so far had been doing a surprisingly good job of managing, as such, his relationship with Hajime so far. After basically setting him up with the date, and notifying Nagito on when to text Hajime (including a handy list of conversation topics, things to say if you mess up and thirty two alternatives for a "wyd" text), Nagito had started to trust the usually unreliable man more, and had actually began to feel as if his love life was in good hands.

That was until Ouma burst into his house (through the back door, which showed that he'd somehow climbed into Nagito's small garden and located the hidden emergency key) at 5:30 am, claiming that Nagito needed "preparing" for his big day. Being mostly asleep, Nagito had no idea what was going on, and almost hit Ouma with a chair out of shock, but somehow Ouma had cleared that situation and so Nagito somehow found himself sat awkwardly on the edge of his bed in front of his mirror in nothing but his boxers, hair fresh and damp from showering as Ouma rummaged through his wardrobe behind him, tutting quietly to himself.

"I swear to god, how many pairs of identical grey jeans do you need?" Ouma chucked a dark grey t shirt absent mindedly onto the small pile of clothes on the floor that he was calling the "yes" pile. To it's left, there was a much larger pile of "no" clothes that he had decided were not fit for wearing.

"They're just comfy..." Nagito muttered, knowing that Ouma probably wouldn't hear. He didn't get Ouma's ideas of fashion and looking good; Nagito always just wore what was confortable and what he thought was cool, which usually ending up as some skinny jeans, print t shirt and hoodie combo. Anyhow, why did it matter too much what he wore? If Hajime really did like him, as Ouma said, surely it wouldn't matter what clothes he had on?

Nagito tried mentioning this to Ouma but he was brushed off almost instantly. 

"You need to look like you made an effort, you know, just for him, but also in a way that doesn't make you look too much like you're trying to impress him. Something casual, yet interesting and modern."

"How about something warm..?" Nagito cast a look out of the window to the cloudy sky. "I think it's going to rain..."

"That doesn't matter. Do you have any t shirts of actually relevant bands?"

Nagito swivelled away from the mirror to look at Ouma.

"What do you mean?" 

"Oh, come on- Who listens to Queen anymore?" Ouma held up the black t shirt and Nagito felt a stab of annoyance.

"I do! Loads of people still listen to Queen, they're one of the biggest ban-"

"Hush. Also, really? Fall out boy? Please tell me you didn't used to be emo..." Ouma raised his eyebrows and absent-mindedly stroked the fabric of the t shirt with his nail-painted fingers.

"What? They're just a good band..." Nagito looked down.

"I knew it! You're an ex-emo!" Ouma's loud voice was hurting Nagito's ears. "Ha ha! Look, a Panic! at the Disco shirt! I should have guessed!"

"Ouma... I swear, I wasn't an emo.. I just like the music.." 

"Well you're definitely not wearing any of these trashy 2000's band shirts." Ouma threw a handful of black shirts down onto the "no" pile. "Hajime probably likes proper music, you know, not all this alternative post hardcore punk pop rock bullshit."

Nagito fell silent as Ouma continued to search.

"Hmm... Nirvana... I suppose they're still relevant, even if Bert Cocaine is dead..."

"Bert Cocaine?" 

"Yes. I've been seeing Nirvana t shirts everywhere recently. Maybe this one would be good." He held up a grey shirt with Nevermind stamped across the chest in a curvy white font, over the top of a duller logo. Nagito shrugged. 

"I mean, if you say so..." 

After what seemed like hours, Ouma finally seemed satisfied with what clothes Nagito was wearing; The grey Nirvana t shirt, a pair of ripped dark-grey-almost-black jeans and a denim jacket that Nagito had forgotten he owned, yet Ouma had somehow discovered in the back of his wardrobe. 

"... And you can wear those weird but kind of edgy Doc Martens that you wear all the time." Ouma concluded, peeping over Nagito's shoulder in the mirror as he unveiled the final look. Ouma looked proud of himself, but Nagito didn't see anything too special. His back was still slouched and his skin was still deathly pale, and even though he'd been trying to eat more he was still all bones sticking out everywhere, with veins that almost glowed blue through thin wrists and freckles that had stopped being cute and instead just looked like some skin disease or something. Nagito sighed a little. Was this good enough for Hajime?

Ouma must of heard him sigh, and looked up.

"You okay?"

"I... I guess so... Do you think this is good enough? Do you think he'll like it?"

Ouma put an arm around Nagito, a difficult task since he was considerably shorter than the other. 

"Oh, honey, I'm not done yet." 

Turns out Ouma had definitely come prepared, since, after sitting down Nagito on his bed again, he retrieved a hair dryer, hair brush, makeup bag, huge set of makeup brushes, a bag full of moisturizers and creams and another make up bag from his backpack, and laid them out before Nagito with an almost sadistic grin on his face. All Nagito could do was gape. The only item of Ouma's that he vaguely recognised was the thick hair brush that lay by his foot. Apart from that, the rest all looked either like food or like strange torture devices.

"Uh.."

"Sh." Ouma knelt on the bed, swooping down to pick up a handful of equipment. "Say no more. I'm gonna make Hajime wonder why he didn't fuck you sooner." 

Nagito had a lot to say to that statement, but he wasn't given a chance, since Ouma started on him almost instantly, plugging in the hair dryer and beginning to slowly dry each fluffy poof of Nagito's hair, gently running his small fingers through the strands as the hot air brushed his scalp. Once Nagito's floof was more or less dry, Ouma began to carefully brush it, making sure that none of the locks became, as he said, "frizzy", and Nagito let himself close his eyes quietly and enjoy the feel of Ouma's hands in his hair. It was one of those moments where Nagito realised how little physical contact he got, to the point where simply having his hair brushed was an amazingly relaxing experience. Also, Ouma was a lot softer than he's expected him to be with his hair; It was a pleasant surprise, but unfortunately it was over too soon, as Ouma finished with his hair and moved on to his face.

"Wow, you're so lucky! You have barely any spots at all." Ouma exclaimed as he examined Nagito's face between his hands, like he was inspecting his victim before he attacked. "But look at all this dry skin! You need... Moisturizing."

Nagito resisted the urge to make a Doctor Who reference as Ouma pulled out a small container and scooped up some of the contents onto his fingers, massaging it into all the nooks and crannies of Nagito's pale face until Nagito felt soft and smooth and fresh. He decided that maybe he should moisturize more, which Ouma encouraged him to do, since it was "bad to have all this dry skin on your face, you'll get more wrinkles." Just when Nagito thought that Ouma might be done making him presentable, Ouma went to unzip on of the multiple makeup bags. 

"Makeup?" Nagito asked. He didn't have anything against wearing makeup (he kind of enjoyed it actually) but did he really need lipstick and stuff to see Hajime? 

"Yeah." Ouma pulled out a handful of products. "Don't worry- I'm not gonna go too over the top. I'm just gonna do some something natural, maybe cover up a few of your dark spots, bring out your features, that kind of stuff." 

Nagito pulled a mildly terrified expression.

"Oh no, don't worry! You won't even be able to tell you have it on." Ouma reassured him as he opened a small bottle full of very light, almost white, liquid. "I'm gonna put this under your eyes, okay? You have very dark circles."

"Maybe because you woke me up.."

"Hm." The liquid, concealer, as Ouma called it, was cold under his eyes, and Nagito blinked and cringed as Ouma blended it into his skin with a small sponge. After applying a few more substances onto Nagito's face, painting Nagito's nails with a layer of black polish and spraying some form of perfume onto him, Ouma finally concluded that he was "done."

"You look just right!" Ouma beamed. "Casual enough, but also unique and standout!" 

"...I do look kind of good.." Nagito mumbled.

"See, I told you I could fix you up." Ouma patted his head fondly. "Hajime's not gonna be able to keep his eyes off of you. But first, you need some breakfast."

"What?"

"Breakfast. It's almost 8 - and you should eat before you go out." Ouma began to leave the room and head to the kitchen, and Nagito quickly got up and scrambled after him.

"Huh, why don't you have any cereal?" Ouma searched through the kitchen cupboards messily, letting things fall out and leaving them on the floor.

"I don't like cereal." Nagito explained, picking up a packet of biscuits and replacing them on their shelf. "I don't really need to have breakfast, you know. I'll get food later." 

"No, you need something to eat now." Ouma picked up a bunch of bananas. "Do you have a blender?"

"What? Yes? Why?" 

"Ooh! I can make smoothies!"

"I already said, I don't want to-" Ouma pushed him out of the kitchen. 

"Go and sit down. Text Hajime or something. I'm going to make you breakfast and you're going to eat it, just give me a minute." 

Since he was tired, Nagito left the room and flopped down onto his sofa as Ouma began to clatter around with equipment in the kitchen. He pulled out his phone and opened Hajime's contact, vaguely typing out a message.

N: we're still on for today right ?

Slowly, Nagito closed his eyes. He was exhausted; He was always exhausted. That was his permanent state. Tired, sad and lonely. What a bore. At least today, he got to see Hajime, Hajime who shone bright like a sunbeam in his storm of a life, Hajime who he hoped he could hold things together enough to not mess up with later.

Buzz!

H: Of course! Is there a problem with it?

A problem? Other than the fact that if anyone finds out about this then we're probably going to die? Nope. Nagito quickly typed a reply. 

N: o no just checking

H: Okay :) 

H: Oh btw is it okay if we meet at 12:30 instead of 11? I have to meet with my boss for like half an hour so I'm gonna be late.

N: yeah thats fine

An hour an a half more to prepare himself, Nagito thought.

H: Okay :) see you then

Nagito felt himself drifting off. Well, he had been woken up early... Surely a small nap wouldn't hurt? His eyes flickered closed and he yawned softly as his head fwhumped down onto the sofa and his mind tumbled into wild dream darkness, where birds could talk and his hair glowed pink and Hajime never let go of his hand as they walked through their castle and admired the ocean outside as-

"Nagito! Heeey!" 

Waking up to Ouma leaning over you, face inches from yours, is unexplainably traumatizing.

"Ah!" Nagito jolted up, and his phone fell out of his hand to clatter on the floor. "Shit!" 

Ouma swooped down and grabbed it, and they both let out a collective sigh of relief when they saw that the screen wasn't cracked.

"Jesus Christ, Ouma." Nagito moaned, rubbing his head as Ouma giggled to himself.

"C'mon, get up sleepyhead. Your breakfast is ready!" Ouma took his hand and lead him through to the kitchen (which was a lot more of a mess than before he'd ransacked it) where a large jug of a pale pink smoothie stood on the table.

"I hope you don't mind that I used the strawberries you had in your fridge." Ouma said as he pulled out a chair for Nagito, which he sank into with a shrug.

"S'fine." He muttered, still half asleep as he watched Ouma pour him a generous cup of smoothie and slide it across the table to him. "How long was I asleep for?"

"Bout an hour and a half." Ouma slurped through a mouthful of smoothie. He swallowed loudly, and licked the pale pink smoothie mustache off of his top lip. "I wanted to let you sleep for a bit because I got you up so early, and I read Hajime's texts, so we have extra time." 

"Mh." Nagito took a sip of his smoothie, surprised to find it actually tasted extremely good. How on earth did Ouma keep on coming up with all these weird random talents; First hair, then makeup, now smoothie making? There was so much that he kept to himself, even though he wasn't really a secretive, mysterious person. He was quite the opposite, really. It amazed Nagito how little he knew about Ouma, despite having known him for six years, but he supposed that Ouma had his reasons for not telling him. And he didn't want to ask, since Ouma might get upset or offended, and since Ouma was the closest thing he had to a friend right now there was no way he was risking it.

"Sooo... You ready for today?" Ouma licked a bit of smoothie off of his top lip.

"No..." Nagito mumbled. There was no way he could be "ready" for this.

"Aw, I'm sure you'll be fine!" Ouma reassured him. "Hajime agreed to see you, so at least there's that."

"But what if he doesn't turn up? What is he was lying?"

"Why the fuck would he do that?" scoffed Ouma, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. 

"I don't know..." Nagito sighed. He was just stressing too much, right? Like always. 

"C'mon, dude, I'm sure it'll go great. You two are obviously made for each other." Ouma said, leaning forward and patting Nagito's arm a little awkwardly. 

"... You really think so?" 

"Of course! He looks at you like you're the best person in the world." Ouma grumbled. "I wish someone would look at me that way." 

A silence fell between the two as they finished their smoothies without talking, leaving the cups on the table and going through to Nagito's living room and sitting on the sofa, where Ouma proceeded to turn on the TV and take Nagito through a list of conversation starters in preparation. Nagito didn't really pay much attention; he was too busy fretting about everything and anything that could go wrong. What if Hajime was going to kill him, and this had all been a plan to get closer to him? What if someone from Oogami or Fuyuhiko saw them? What if Hajime didn't like him? What if he said something wrong and upset Hajime? There were so many things that could go wrong, there was no way on earth that this could go well. By the time Nagito entered the café, (at exactly 12:30 because he was terrified of being late and being early simultaneously)he was completely ready for Hajime to burst through the door and explode or something. He was convinced that there was no way this would go his way; why would it?  
His legs were shaking under the table as he nervously slipped into a chair, staring out of the window and tapping on the surface of the table with his short fingernails as the pressure of anxiety built up inside of him. Every single time the cafe door opened, he felt his heart race and breathing catch until he he was sure that it wasn't Hajime. There was this one woman who came in, who had short, brown hair, just like Hajime, and Nagito nearly had a heart attack before he identified her as someone else.

"Geez..." He muttered under his breath. He really should calm down, but there was no going back now because-

There he was.

Perfect, as always. What else would he look like? Nagito was honestly tempted by crying again. There he was, flawless skin, fluffy hair, sharp body, looking like an angel that had fallen from heaven straight into a modelling career, with tight mom jeans, scratched with strategic rips on the thighs, and a large, textured grey sweater with the baggy sleeves pushed up slightly to reveal a variety of beaded, leather, chain and string bracelets swinging from his wrists. And there- There were his eyes! Eyes which Nagito feared to look at in case he got trapped in them, so instead he gazed at the face that surrounded them, strong jawline, long, brown eyelashes, soft lips, slightly tinted with a gloss that Nagito wished he could find out the flavour of.

Since he'd been studying Hajime's face closely since the moment he'd walked in, Nagito had no problem pinpointing the exact moment that Hajime saw him, the way his eyebrows raised and his mouth opened and his eyes widened. Nagito wished he was close enough to see if Hajime's pupils dilated, (wasn't that supposed to mean that they loved you or something?) yet he was soon distracted because Hajime smiled, and that was more important than anything.

"Hi!" Nagito felt like floating as Hajime quietly sat down in the chair right in front of him. Hajime's eyes were on him, Hajime's smile was for him. Hajime was right here: For him.

"Hey!" Nagito smiled brightly, loving the way Hajime's smile shone back, as if reflected, as a few seconds of awkward silence passed by. "So, uh.. How's life been?" 

"Mhn.. Not too great, really, but that doesn't matter." Hajime leant forward, head rested on his right arm. "How 'bout you?"

"Uhh.. I don't know, I've been okay I guess." Nagito replied, internally yelling at himself for being so boring.

"That's good." 

"Yeah.." 

Nagito felt like screaming. He'd fucked up the conversation already. Way to go. He needed to do something quick before Hajime lost interest-

"Do you wanna go, uh, out of here?... Unless you're, like, hungry, or..." Nagito blurted out. 

"Oh, yeah, okay! Is there somewhere you wanna go?" Hajime's head lifted up.

"Not really.. We could just walk around, I guess." Nagito suggested, topping it off with a smile that he hoped was cute.

"Yeah, okay. Sounds like a plan." Hajime stood up quickly, looking down on Nagito as he waited for him to do the same. Nagito pressed his hand against the table and pushed himself up, nearly crashing into Hajime and apologizing quickly, before they both headed for the exit. Nagito was careful to hold the door for Hajime, a "tip" that Ouma had given him ("You'll look like such a gentleman!") and walked ever so slightly behind him as they began to wonder down the street. Nagito watched as Hajime's neat hands quickly unrolled his sleeves, hooking his fingers under the fabric at the ends of them and clenching in a fist to warm his hands as hr gazed up at the cloudy sky.

"I think it's going to rain..." he said, more to himself than to Nagito, but Nagito answered anyway.

"Yeah... We sure picked a bad day to do this."

Hajime chuckled as he turned away from the sky to rest his eyes upon Nagito again.

"Hm. This was the only day I could get off of work, sorry." he shrugged as they continued to walk aimlessly down the street.

"It's okay. The weather doesn't really matter anyway." 

"Yeah. Although I'm gonna be actually freezing if it rains." Hajime pulled his arms in closer to his body, sighing regretfully at the tears in his jeans. Nagito raised his eyebrows.

"Oh, you can have my jacket if you're col-"

"No, no, I'll be fine." Despite his dismissive expression, Hajime had a light blush on his cheeks. "It's not that bad."

"... Okay, but if you want it, just say." 

"Okay." 

They walked in silence for a minute until they reached the main street of the town, busy and crowded with people browsing the variety of colourful shops that lined the sides of the road. Hajime came to a stop at the bottom of the street, looking up at all the stores going up the hill that the section of the town was built on, and Nagito stopped next to him.

"Hey, do you wanna go look round the shops?" Hajime turned to him with a smile.

"I mean, yeah, sure, if you want to." Nagito shrugged, taken aback a little by Hajime looking directly at him. "Let's go."

"There are some pretty okay shops here," Hajime told him as they walked side by side up the street, Hajime leading slightly since Nagito assumed he knew what he was doing more than he did. "Like, not amazing shops, but not bad shops either." He pointed at an edgy looking clothes shop with dark mannequins in autumnal looking clothes lining the windows. "Like this one. Let's go in here."

"Okay." Nagito smiled as he followed Hajime into the shop, gagging ever so slightly on the heavy perfume scent that hit them as they entered. Quickly, he put his arm to his mouth to stop his asthma from appearing.

"You okay?" Hajime was a while away from him, already admiring a t shirt on a mannequin.

"Yeah, m'fine." Nagito muttered as he lowered his sleeve from his mouth and went over to join him.

"This is pretty cute, don't you think?" Hajime held up a dark blue t shirt hanging from a coat hanger on a rack. To Nagito, it just looked like a normal t shirt, nothing special, but he decided to agree with Hajime.

"Uh, yeah." he said, smiling as Hajime put it down.

"It's such a nice colour. Shame they don't have it in my size." 

"Oh.." Nagito followed Hajime round the shop, carefully looking at all the items of clothing that Hajime took and interest in until they reached the women's section, where Nagito expected Hajime to turn back. He didn't.

"Let's go look at the shoes." He grinned, taking off towards the shelves lined with footwear as Nagito chased after him.

"Wait for me!" 

"Sorry!" Hajime grinned again as Nagito reached him, out of breath after sprinting through the women's jeans section. "But- look at these!" His hands reached towards the shelf, outstretched in front of a pair of sparkly, silver stilettos that glimmered, waiting for a princess or fairy to wear them, or some kind of stripper, but either way; pretty incredible.

"Aren't they beautiful?" 

Nagito gaped slightly, glancing at Hinata, then back to the fabulous shoes, before nodding quickly.

"Yeah. You should try them on." 

Hajime blushed again, and Nagito felt a small rush of success as the other's eyebrows raised daringly.

"I might. I wonder what size they're in." he leant forward and quickly looked on the inside of one of the shoes. "Oh my god, they're my size! I need to try these on.."

Grabbing the heels, Hajime quickly strutted over to one of the seats positioned in the area so people could sit down to test out shoes, and promptly sat down, pulling off his sneakers, (that Nagito hadn't noticed he was wearing until that moment) without even untying the laces and carefully stripped himself of his socks, showing off toenails painted red. Nagito slowly snuck over to perch on the edge of the largish ottoman type thing that Hajime was sat on, hoping that his admiring of Hajime's manicure was subtle and not weird or creepy. He was just so taken aback by the nail polish; he hadn't expected it at all, but somehow it made so much sense, and fitted so well.

None of these thoughts mattered anymore as Hajime slipped his feet into the stilettos and slowly stood up, Nagito's eyes following the beautiful shoes as they slowly strode about a metre forward before turning around to face him.

"How do I look?" 

About five inches taller, with legs longer than Nagito's probable life span and a victorias secret model body. Nagito coughed.

"... They suit you."

"You think so?" Hajime twirled towards one of the store mirrors, hand on his waist as he swished his hips, well, sexily, as he took in his look. Nagito had to stare very closely at the label of a nearby pair of winter boots for a full five seconds to try to control the dirty thoughts he was having. Shit, Hajime looked good... more than good, amazing... He could sure get used to a sight like this.

"You look... Really nice." Nagito stuttered out as he gazed, awe-struck, at Hajime in the shoes as he continued to pose in the mirror.

"These make my ass look great."

Nagito decided that it really wasn't his fault that he looked directly at Hajime's ass after he said that, he was basically being provoked. And Hajime was right, his ass did look amazing.

"Yeah, they do." Nagito shifted slightly as Hajime grinned at him, blushing, at him over his shoulder.

"Thanks. I don't do all those squats for nothing."

Nagito tried not to choke, not just because of the heavy perfume of the shop but because Hajime was flirting with him which means his (Ouma's) plan was working!

As Hajime carried on modelling in the mirror, trying out different positions to show off his ass, probably, and Nagito watched, a woman, maybe in her early fifties, walked by, and Nagito tried his best to ignore the filthy face she was making at Hajime's turned back. It was a look of pure disgust, and it made Nagito extremely uncomfortable. Just as she turned away and Nagito thought she would leave, he heard her mutter something under her breath. He couldn't quite make it out clearly, but he was pretty sure she said "faggot".

"What did you just say?" The woman froze, and so did Nagito, and Hajime's head whipped round with a look of confusion.

"Nagito-?" 

Nagito held up a hand, silencing Hajime as he stared directly into the woman's eyes.

"What did you say?" 

Her eyes narrowed, the disgusted look returning to her already bad looking face.

"I said 'faggot'" she said, with more confidence than Nagito knew she had. He'd seen so many people scared, he could tell very easily when someone was pretending.

"And why did you say that?"

Hajime was standing very still, hands entwined in each other nervously, tense, as Nagito burnt his eyes into the quaking woman's.

"It's not right... Men dressing up like that.. You'll attract unwanted attention.. And it's just wrong.." despite her stuttering, she continued to stare stubbornly back at Nagito.

"Unwanted attention from who, exactly?" Nagito was furious, seething, and terrifyingly calm. The tingle of a kill was upon him, and even though he knew this was not the time of place, he couldn't help but enjoy the burst of confidence.

"Gays! Perverts - You were staring at him! That's disgusting and wrong."

Hajime flushed, and Nagito knitted his eyebrows.

"What's wrong with me looking at him? He didn't say I couldn't."

Quickly, he flashed Hajime a "help me out here" look, and Hajime sprung back to life again.

"I- I'm totally fine with him looking at me." he said, blushing deeply. Nagito decided he would let that go to his dick later.

"You're both going to hell." the woman snapped, shaking her hair angrily and folding her arms. "I'm not going to waste my time on sinners like you." 

Nagito and Hajime gaped as she strutted off.

"Well, fuck." Hajime muttered as he quietly sank down back onto the seat next to Nagito. Nagito noticed that his legs were shaking 

"Are you okay?" he asked gently, slowly placing a hand on Hajime's shoulder as he slipped his feet out of the shoes.

"Yeah, I'm fine... What a fucking cunt..." he glared in the direction that the woman had left.

"I know right." Nagito gave Hajime's arm a comforting rub before slowly leaning back. "Do you wanna go somewhere else?"

"Yeah.." Hajime said, carefully placing the shoes back on their shelf with a wistful sigh. "They were way too expensive anyway."

As they left the shop, Nagito resisted the urge to hold Hajime's hand, since he was shaking pretty badly, but he decided that it might look creepy, and he was already aware of how he was staring at Hajime in the shop; Had Hajime lied about not minding it just to get the woman to leave, or was it the truth? They walked in silence, Nagito relieved to get out of the perfumed shop and into the fresh air, as they made their way past other shops. Nagito decided to break the silence.

"Are you hungry at all?" this was the only conversation starter from Ouma's list that he could remember.

"Yeah, kinda. You wanna get some food?" Hajime shrugged, pulling his sweater closer to himself as a sharp gust of wind hit them. 

"Sure. Where do you wanna go?"

Hajime's eyes scanned up and down the street, widening and narrowing slightly as he viewed each shop.

"What about here?" he pointed at a bright store with an extravagant multicoloured decoration in the front window.

"Sure.." Nagito nodded and smiled as he hid his inner confusion. Wasn't that a sweet shop...?

"Let's go!" Hajime grabbed his hand and Nagito's heart skipped at least three beats. His hands were so warm, so soft... And dragging him eagerly towards a sweet shop.

"Uh, I don't think this shop sells proper foo-"

"Who said anything about proper food?"

A bell chimed merrily as Hajime pushed open the door and pulled Nagito into the warm, sweet smelling shop, and the young woman sat behind the counter looked up with a smile.

"Hi!" she grinned and Hajime smiled back.

"Hi." he still hadn't let go of Nagito's hand and Nagito was finding it pretty hard to function when he couldn't stop hyperventilating at the thrill of the touch.

"You guys looking for anything in particular?" the woman addressed them, placing down the book she was reading on the counter.

"Hmm. There's so much to choose from!" Hajime looked up at the towering shelved full of jarred sweets, still clinging into Nagito hand as he turned towards him. "What do you want?"

Nagito felt taken aback by all the sweets that stood before him. He wasn't really much of a sweets person, but if Hajime was getting some...

"Uh, I don't know... There are so many options..."

"Well, take your time, dudes."

Hajime let go of his hand and wondered over to inspect a large display of foreign confectionery, and Nagito felt a wave of relief mixed with disappointment as he followed. 

"Oh my god! We should get these!" Hajime held up two of those weird candy necklace things. "God, these make me think of my childhood.."

"Yeah, me too." Nagito smiled. This was extremely cute.

"Let's get one each so we can be matching! And what about these!" he grabbed a huge packet of those nerds sweets (Nagito never understood why they had such a weird name...)

"Sure." Nagito smiled and shrugged, happy just watching Hajime dance around the sweet shop like a little child. It was an extreme difference to when he was strutting sexily about a clothes shop in killer heels a mere half hour ago, but somehow they were both equally enjoyable things to witness.

"Ooh!" soon enough, Hajime's hands were full of a selection of sweets that he'd chosen from the huge choice of options, so much that he was struggling to hold them all. "Arrg! Could you- Ugh, wait a minute-" he shifted his wrists slightly to stop himself from dropping two galaxy chocolate bars. "I think this is enough now." 

"Yeah." Nagito chuckled, quickly moving a toffee that was slipping from Hajime's grip to the top of his arms to stop it from falling. They shuffled quietly to the counter, making sure not to lose anything on the way, before Hajime plunked all the sweets down in front of the grinning woman.

"Got enough now?" she teased as she began to swipe all of the confectionary through the scanner thing, making quiet beep noises.

"Haha, yeah." Hajime said, pulling out his wallet. Nagito stopped, placing a gentle hand on Hajime's arm.

"Wait, let me pay for it." he said, smiling softly.

"What, no! You don't have to do that! I chose them, so I should pay for them." 

"No, really, it's no big deal. Let me pay." Nagito pulled his wallet out of his jacket pocket, turning to the woman behind the counter. "How much is it all, then?"

"£19.85" the girl said, pushing a few buttons on the cash register.

"That's twenty pounds of sweets- Please, Nagito, let me pay." Hajime protested, but Nagito shook his head.

"Honestly, it's nothing, I swear." he pulled out a twenty pound note and handed it to the woman. "There you go."

"Nagito, noooo-"

"I wouldn't complain if i were you, mate." the woman said to Hajime as she placed the change in Nagito's hand. "I wish I could find a nice guy like you have who'll buy stuff for me. You're lucky. Do you want a bag?"

"Uh, yeah, please." Hajime blushed and stuttered and Nagito's heart melted. 

"You two are together, right?" she asked as her and Hajime worked together to pile all the sweets into the bag.

"Uh, I don't know, I guess..." Hajime glanced at Nagito. 

"I mean, maybe... If you..." Nagito trailed off, and shrugged, falling silent as the woman finished putting the last of the sweets into the bag and handed it to Hajime.

"We, you definitely should be. You make an adorable pair." Hajime smiled as him and Nagito headed towars the door, bag of sweets in hand.

"Yeah... Thanks!"

"Anytime!"

Nagito wondered if Hajime would hold his hand again as they began walking down the street, but unfortunately he was carrying the bag of sweets in the hand nearest to Nagito so that seemed impossible. Maybe it was for the best; Nagito had a hard time concentrating on anything when Hajime was touching him.

"You okay?"

"Hm?" Nagito side glanced at Hajime, confused.

"You've gone quiet." he said.

"Oh, oh, sorry, I just, zoned out, you know... Sorry..." Hajime smiled quickly.

"No, no, no, it's okay! I was just asking if you were alright." Nagito's face was heating up again, possibly going red, and he looked at the ground to try and hide how touched he was by the fact that Hajime cared about how he was feeling. 

"Ah, yeah, sorry. I'm fine, yeah. Sorry" Shit! That was like the fourth time he'd said sorry now! Just look away and pray Hajime didn't notice-

"You say sorry a lot." 

God damnit. Nagito looked at Hajime's bemused face, avoiding the eyes at all costs (this was not the moment to fall into those eyes. He'd get trapped in there and he knew it.) as his mouth opened and closed in mild shock.

"Yeah.. sorry..." he murmured. That was a mistake. Why would you say "sorry" to"you say sorry a lot"? That was completely slaughtering his chances of playing this off! Nagito felt, for the millionth time that day, like he'd messed up. There was that sick feeling in his stomach again, the empty burning that told him that Hajime didn't want to be here with him.

"Nagito, it's fine." Hajime smiled a warm, friendly, calming smile, a smile that Nagito decided was worth risking his job and life for. He'd almost completely forgotten about Fuyuhiko and Oogami; all that really mattered was Hajime. "There's no need to apologise, it's okay."

Hajime switched the bag of sweets from his left hand to his right hand, so his left hand could reach out and hold Nagito's. 

"Hey, can we look in here?" he asked, nodding towards a large department-looking shop."This place is new, I've been meaning to take look in here for a while." 

"Of course." Nagito almost added a loveable nickname, like honey, or sweetie, or dear, onto the end of that sentence, but held back. He wasn't sure how Hajime would react, and maybe it was too soon, anyway.

Hajime lead him towards to shop with a gentle but firm grip on his hand, and Nagito was relieved to find out that this store had normal air conditioning instead of heavy perfume, so he didn't have to cover his mouth. The shop itself was an interesting variety of things, one of those shops which sold everything, ranging from pillow cases to gardening equipment, and they quietly made their way through sections of tea sets, bath bombs, outdoor furniture, festive decorations and kitchen utensils, Hajime occasionally commenting on something he saw that he liked and Nagito more than happy to watch Hajime browse, taking in every word he said but still staying fixed on his face. 

He really was beautiful. Nagito had always been aware of Hajime being attractive, ever since the first time they met, back when Nagito was a short haired scrap of a teenager whose hands shook too much out of anxiety to even hold a gun, but had it really taken him seven years to realise that Hajime was the most beautiful person he'd ever seen? Seven years of oblivious sexual tension, flirting, teasing and fighting had somehow evolved into the relationship they had today: calm, casual, happy, as if Hajime was finally comfortable in his presence without the looming presence of murder or sex (or both). What had changed, Nagito wondered, to make Hajime reveal this kind, soft other side of him to Nagito? Surely not the sex that they had, when they should have been working, followed by them injuring each other? No. That was an old era of their relationship, back when Nagito thought that Hajime was a lot less nice than he turned out to be, and Nagito acted a lot more confident than he knew he was. 

This was a new era, a type of relationship even more dangerous than the previous since now they actually cared about each other. Nagito was terrified; the better things for with Hajime, the more likely they were both to die.

"...Hey, Hajime?" Nagito coughed a little, his words getting caught in his throat, as Hajime turned back to him.

"What?"

"Uh... When did you start, uh, not hating me?" Nagito didn't want to say "like" because he didn't want to assume that Hajime liked him, not just yet.

"Do you mean, when I stopped seeing you as an enemy?" 

Enemy. The word stung like a bug bite, a deep reminder of how, a mere five months ago, Nagito and Hajime would have been ready to kill each other.

"Yeah.. When did we stop being enemies, and start being... Well, this." There wasn't a word for what they were right now; They were on a date, flirting, obviously romantically interested in each other but not dating? Not boyfriends, but not friends. Definitely not enemies.

"I suppose... I don't know... When you texted me that first time? I didn't really expect you to want to talk to me, after I stabbed you... I'm really sorry for doing that, by the way."

"It's fine. I'm sorry for shooting you, too." Nagito looked down. "It was weird... I really regretted, uh, what we did at that office building, afterwards, but now, I don't really regret anything."

Hajime nodded. "I know, me too. I don't know, it was so weird and blurry because I was on lots of pain medication for my leg, but I suddenly realised that I really liked you? Like, I'd been attracted to you since we first met, on that one job with Munakata and Juzo, because you're an attractive person, you know, but like, you're actually a nice person too? I always thought you were just some prick who got a sick kick out of killing, but you're actually really sweet..."

"You... You really like me?" Nagito couldn't believe the Hajime had literally just repeated to him everything that Nagito had been thinking.

"Well, yeah. You're adorable." Hajime squeezed his hand a little as Nagito almost choked.

"A-adorable? I'm not-"

"Ssh, yes you are. You're one of the best people I know."

"B-but, you're so much better than me, why would you, why would you like me??!" Hajime and Nagito were both blushing.

"You're interesting, and you're kind, and funny and I like you a lot. I don't really need a reason." Hajime said. "And trust me, I'm not better than you. We both kill people for a living, we're about equal." he lowered his voice on the "killing people" section.

Nagito was blushing madly, feeling like he could cry out of happiness, before quickly jumping forward and hugging Hajime tightly.

"Thank you!!" he laughed and grinned, overcome with amazing, pure happiness. "You truly are the best person on the planet!!!"

"Aah, Nagito, no I'm not." Hajime laughed as he hugged him back. "But thanks anyway."

Breaking apart from the hug was difficult, but Nagito could feel his heart racing, eyes shining, fingers quaking, like he could do anything. This was the right feeling; This was how he wanted to be all the time.

He was grinning from ear to ear as he and Hajime continued through the shop, stopping so Hajime could look at a shelf of stuffed animals.

"Aw, look at this!" he picked up a stuffed dog, plush and fluffy, with brown fur, blue ears and a blue tail to match. "Isn't it cute?"

"Aww, yeah." Nagito reached out to stroke the toys head a little. "I love dogs." (this was an understatement: Nagito would do anything for any dog ever)

"I'm more of a cat person, to be honest, but this little guy is so cute! ...I might buy him."

"Do it!" Nagito encouraged,and Hajime nodded in confirmation. "What are you gonna call him?"

"Hmm, I don't know... What do you think?"

Nagito gulped. This was way too much responsibility. Did ge give it a cute, funny, jokey name, or do something serious. Would it be werid if he did something serious? Was Hajime expecting a joke name?

"Uhh... I dont know..."

"We can figure out a name later, it's okay." Hajime tucked the toy under his arm. "I think we've seen the entire shop now."

"Yeah..." Nagito nodded.

"And we still need to eat all these goddamn sweets... Welp, let's go buy this guy and we can find a place to sit and eat all of this shit." he gestured to the bag before walking back through the shop, followed by Nagito, to the checkout. The woman on the counter looked bored and tired, so luckily she didn't seem to question why two grown men were buying a stuffed children's toy. Hajime insisted that he payed this time, and put the dog carefully in the bag with all the sweets as they left the shop.

"Where are we gonna now?" Nagito asked, watching Hajime as he checked the time on his phone.

"It's nearly two already, geez." Hajime commented as he put his phone back in his pocket. "I... I have a place where we could go."

"Hm? Where...?" Nagito asked, raising his eyebrows at the shy look on Hajime's face.

"It's like... A special place, to me, you know? Not many people know about it..."

"What? Where is it?" 

"Huh... I'll show you." 

Hajime grabbed Nagito's hand and began to drag him off up the street, but Nagito didn't allowed himself to move, digging his feet into the ground as he shoes dragged across the pavement.

"What's wrong?"

Nagito was suspicious. A secret place that not many people knew about... Didn't that sound like the perfect place to murder someone? Not that he didn't trust Hajime, just, he was a hitman. An enemy hitman.

"I... Where is this place, exactly?" 

Hajime's eyebrows furrowed. 

"... It's the bridge that goes across the old railway line, the one that closed down. It leads to the big abandoned warehouse on the side of the hill. You can see the whole town from up there. Is something wrong?"

"... No, just... I don't know..."

"You can trust me, you know? I'm not gonna murder you, promise." 

Like he read Nagito's mind. Nagito still wasn't convinced entirely, but he decided to go with it. He figured that, if he was gonna die, he wouldn't mind getting killed by Hajime.

"Okay." Nagito said, taking Hajime's hand again and allowing himself to be lead, back up the busy main street until they reached the top, where Hajime turned right, onto a quieter road with just people's houses on it, then turned left onto a small alleyway about halfway down the street. He let go of Nagito's hand once they got to the alley, and Nagito instead followed him down the moss covered, overgrown pathway, ducking under hanging branches as they passed back garden fences and abandoned rubbish bags until the trees grew thicker and obscured the sky and the path was barely there, but Hajime still kept going. 

Just as Nagito started to think that they were completely lost, and maybe Hajime was going to kill him, they emerged from the trees into light.

The bridge was old, made of brown, aged bricks, wide enough for a car to pass over with sides that only came up to Nagito's lower waist. It stood around twenty or so metres above the railway lines underneath, with a steep grassy bank leading up from it to form a small valley in the hill, with fences running down the tops of the slopes. Hajime quietly walked onto the bridge, and Nagito followed until he stopped directly in the middle and turned to his left, looking out over an incredible view of the town. From the bridge, you could see the abandoned railway snake down into the town, disappear down over a hill and then reappear, as just a glimpse of glittering train track, in the buildings of the town. Nagito could see every individual building's roof; there was the town hall, there was the new, modern library, their was the school, and, oh, there was Fuyuhiko headquarters. 

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" said Hajime softly, speaking quietly as so not to disturb the peace.

"Yeah." Nagito looked at Hajime, looked into those eyes. Oh dear. Hajime's eyes had swallowed the entire sky, filling the green with vibrant pale blue like fractured tears dotted with smudges of clouds and the silhouettes of bird that traced across them. Nagito was entranced, only to find those eyes looking straight back at him, and when they stared deep into him Nagito felt like the world had frozen in time.

"Turn your head a bit, lemme see what colour your eyes are." Hajime gently moved Nagito's head with one hand until he could see all of Nagito's wide eyes, his beautiful eyed digging into his like they were sucking the life out of him.

"You have such nice eyes- They're like a greeny grey, I've never seen eyes this colour before. They're pretty."

"Your eyes are prettier..." 

"Nah, mine are nothing special, just kinda browny greeny and boring."

Nagito stopped. How was Hajime not aware that he possessed the most gorgeous eyed in existence? How did he not notice that his glances could melt souls and his tears could carve valleys and his irises were killing Nagito alive?

"No... no, your eyes are the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen.." Nagito stuttered, looking away, scared of loosing his words to the glare again. "You have the most amazing, amazing eyes.."

Hajime seemed taken aback by the sincerity in Nagito's voice.

"Haha... Thank you.." he chuckled, casting another long glance out over the town. After a long pause, he turned back to Nagito.

"Well, I guess we should eat some of these sweets." he said, grabbing the bag off the floor and sinking down into a fetal position, leaning against the wall of the bridge, patting the ground to his right for Nagito to join him.

Once they were settled, Hajime began rummaging through the bag, picking out a few things and handing them to Nagito.

"Hey! Come here for a second-"

"What..?" 

Hajime reached across and leant in close to Nagito, close enough for his hair to brush Nagito's skin and Nagito to smell his cologne as his skin flushed terribly at the lack of distance between the two. What was he doing...?

One Hajime pulled back, Nagito had one of those candy necklaces around his neck. He'd been so caught up in the closeness of Hajime's body that he hadn't even noticed him slip the candy jewellery over his head.

"Oh..!" Nagito smiled, reaching down to pull at the necklace as Hajime slipped on his own one. 

"I used to love these things... Do you want a lollipop?" 

"Yeah, okay." Nagito took the sweet from Hajime's hands, unwrapping it as quietly as possible before putting it in his mouth and sucking gently.

"We got so many... I don't know if we're gonna be able to eat all this..." 

"It's okay," Nagito spoke through the lolly before taking it out of his mouth and speaking clearly. "You can just keep whatevers left over and eat it another time."

"But you bought it all, I can't just keep it." Hajime bit into a chocolate.

"Yeah you can. Consider it a gift." Nagito smirked, and Hajime laughed quietly.

"No... Maybe we can split it?" Hajime seemed sincerely worried about what he was gonna do with all the candy.

"I insist, just keep it." Nagito ran a hand through his hair. "They'll be no use to me, I won't eat them."

"Do you not like sweets?" Hajime unwrapped a packet of fruit gummy things.

"Hhn, it's not that I don't like sweets, I just don't really like eating at all..." Nagito mumbled, looking up at the sky over the far side of the bridge.

"That's not good, you should eat more. No wonder you're so pale." 

"Hm..." Nagito sucked harder on his lolly as he tried to figure out if that was a compliment or not.

"And besides, we're fucking hitmen, it would be a bit stupid if you were to die of starvation."

"What?"

"You know, we're gonna get killed in this job so at least you should get killed an interesting way." Hajime sighed.

"I guess you're right..." Nagito looked down at Hajime's fidgeting hands folded in his lap. "Do you think... Do you think we're gonna get killed if anyone finds out about... Us?"

"I don't know. People will definitely be angry... And we'll probably get fired." 

"That basically death then. They stop protecting you from the authorities as soon as you leave. We'll be arrested instantly."

"Do they actually do that..?" Hajime asked, pulling his knees to his chest and wrapping his arms around them.

"At Fuyuhiko, yeah. There was this girl, Chisa or something, like right when I first started, who tried to leave. She's still in prison I think." To Nagito it was a distant memory, way too long ago to have much feeling to it. He couldn't even remember Chisa's face.

"God... I bet Oogami do that too then..." Hajime whispered. "... Why does it have to be like this?"

Nagito knew he should say something, but what was there to say? This was amazing, but if they kept this up, they'd either end up dead or in prison.

"We really did mess up.." Nagito sighed softly. "I don't know what to do..."

"Me neither... I don't want to stop seeing you, definitely not... But I don't want to die."

Nagito inhaled slowly. 

"Well, your life should come over me any time. Don't die because of me..." 

"I don't know, that'd be a pretty okay way to die." 

What.

"Don't say things like that..!" Nagito grabbed Hajime's hand quickly, and Hajime looked up at him and smiled.

"It's okay, it's okay-"

"Please don't die!"

"I promise I'm not going to die!" Hajime was laughing but also gripping Nagito's hand tightly. "There's nothing we can do right now. We should just stop worrying about it- We're supposed to be on a date right?"

"Oh, yeah... Sorry..." Nagito said. He had a point...

"Ssh, it's fine. Have a wine gum." he offered Nagito the packet, and Nagito reached in and pulled out a yellow sweet, feeling the mood instantly lift as their conversation turned back to lighter topics; they discussed their opinions on television shows (Hajime said that his favourite TV show was Rupaul's Drag Race, which Nagito had never heard of), and favourite drinks (Hajime somehow managed to speak for a full fifteen minutes on how much he liked coffee), and colours (Hajime's favourite colour was red, and Nagito decided he should start wearing more red) as they slowly made their way through the bag of sweets until the sun was beginning to go down and their stomachs were hurting.

Hajime sighed loudly as he leaned a little too far over the edge of the bridge, causing Nagito to outstretch his hand in worry. At his touch, Hajime straightened up again.

"Hey, what time is it?" the sun was weak and yellow in the sky, casting an orange wash that made Hajime's skin glow and his eyes blinding to look at. Nagito pulled out his phone, ignored the text of " so how's it going ;))))))))" from Ouma and looked at the clock.

"Just gone five." he said putting the phone back into his jacket pocket. Hajime sighed again.

"Do you mind if I smoke?" he asked casually, and Nagito stopped.

"Smoke... What?" Weed? Crack? Vape? Pot? (Wait, aren't weed and crack and pot the same thing...?)

"... A cigarette. I know, it's really bad and I need to quit but... I guess I just need something to take the edge off everything..." Hajime looked down, embarrassed. "If you don't want me to, I wo-"

"Nonono, it's fine. I just didn't expect you to be the type of person to smoke." He had better breath than what Nagito would expect of a smoker?

"Ah, I see. I mean, my nails haven't gone yellow or whatever yet." Hajime pulled out a packet of cigarettes as he sat on the edge of the bridge, tapping the box a few times against his thigh before opening it and pulling out a single cigarette. Nagito watched, fascinated, as he pulled out a lighter, placed the roll between his lips and lit it.

"How long have you been smoking?" Nagito asked as Hajime took in his first, long drag of smoke and puffed it out in a large cloud in the air.

"I'm not sure exactly... I started around the same time I started working at Oogami. That was what, six years ago?"

"You've been working for Oogami for six years? That's how long I've been working for Fuyuhiko.." Nagito said.

"Yeah, I think so. I started when I was eighteen... So, yeah. Six years."

Nagito quickly did the maths in his head.

"So you're twenty-five?" 

"Yeah. What about you?" Hajime asked, before adding. "Please don't tell me you're forty or something."

"I'm twenty-five too." Nagito wondered why he hadn't asked Hajime's age before.

"Ah, that's a relief. We're the same age!" Hajime laughed, and the wind blew as if his voice had awoken it. "So... When's your birthday?"

"Oh, 24th of April." Nagito said. His birthday was ages ago, and it didn't really mean much to him anyway. What was the point of birthdays?

"Ha! I'm older than you!" Hajime blew more smoke out over the side of the bridge. "I'm the 1st of January." 

"New years day?"

"Yeah. I always used to hate hiw people made a bigger deal of the new year than of my birthday, but I don't care too much anymore." Hajime said, draping the hand that didn't have his cigarette in over the side of the bridge.

"Hm... I used to love birthdays..." Nagito said, quietly sitting on the edge of the bridge, about a foot away from Hajime.

"Me too. What happened to that, huh?" Hajime sighed again, one of those long sighs that shook the bones and echoed under the bridge.

As Hajime's wistful sigh died away, silence engulfed the pair, neither speak as Hajime finished smoking his cigarette and Nagito watched closely to see the way that Hajime's lips pursed when he exhaled the smoke and the way that his hair waved softly in the breeze. Once he was done, Hajime flicked the burnt up cigarette onto the unused railway tracks below, and as he leant back be placed his hand on to of Nagito's by accident.

"Shit!" 

Hajime was shocked by the unexpected hand on the bridge, and Nagito was shocked by the sudden weight on his own hand. As a result, they both jumped back suddenly, Hajime wobbling dangerously close to the edge of the bridge before stumbling to his feet on the bridge, and Nagito stood up next to him.

"Are you okay? I'm so sorry." he sprung forward and touched Hajime's shoulder.

"I'm fine, I'm fine." Hajime chuckled, turning towards Nagito. "I just didnt expect your hand."

"Aaa, I'm sorry." Nagito grabbed his arm. "Are you hurt?"

"I said, I'm fine. Don't worry!" Hajime out his hand on Nagito shoulder, so they were almost embracing, yet he seemed unaware of this. Even so, Nagito blushed.

"Uh..." Hajime was looking behind Nagito, until his eyes fell onto his face instead. Nagio felt his hair stand on end and his heart skip a beat as their eyes gazed straight into each other and Hajime bit his lip with a distanced look on his face.

"Hajime...?" Nagito tightened his hand on Hajime's arm, and Hajime's eyes flickered.

"Is it okay if I... Kiss you?" he whispered.

"What-!?" Nagito gasped, blushing even more.

"I might taste like smoke, but, uh, I kind of really want to kis-" 

Nagito quickly pushed his face forwards, colliding slightly with Hajime's as he pressed their mouths together, turning his head to the left so their noses didn't squish together and slowly moving his lips. Hajime gasped a little, grabbing Nagito with his other arm as well and pulling him closer, arching his back and holding him tight like he never wanted to let go. Nagito felt that tingling sensation rush over him, how his stomach dropped and goosebumps spread over his body, how Hajime's collapsing knees knocked into his, how the windy made their forms wobble and teeter. They broke apart a few times to take gasps of air, only to dive back in; they couldn't get enough of each other. This was heaven on earth, Nagito thought. This is right.

The first raindrop hit Nagito directly on his head, and the second hit his forehead but rolled down over his nose onto Hajime's. They broke apart softy to look up as more and more raindrops began to fall from the sky that had fogged up grey all of a sudden, quickly reaching to cover their head with their hands.

"Fuck." Hinata grabbed the bag of sweets off the floor, quickly closing the opening so none of their candy got wet as he protected his hair with one hand. Nagito went to pull up his hood, before remembering the promise he'd made to Hajime earlier. 

"Here, have my jacket." he said, loudly so Hajime could hear him over the now pouring rain, as he took off the denim jacket and handed it to Hajime. For a second, Hajime looked like he was going to turn down the offer, but Nagito pulled a stern face and Hajime took it off of him and put it on, yelling a muffled "thank you" as he pulled the hood over his face.

The rain got heavier and heavier until Nagito could barely see the town from the bridge anymore, and he shivered, clutching his exposed arms with each other as his t shirt got soaked. Hajime spent a moment sitting out the sweets, picking up all the wrappers they left on the floor before he squinted at Nagito through the droplets.

"Do you want to go back to my place?"

"What?"

"My house. It's not too far from here."

Nagito felt a thrill of excitement. Was Hajime... asking him to go home with him?

"Yeah, if it's okay with you." 

Hajime grinned and grabbed his hand again, leading Nagito back, through the shelter of the trees, past all the back gardens, then left down the street. From there it was a blur of identical looking houses until they reached a large building block made of red brick. Hajime lead him up three flights of stairs before unlocking a white front door and letting them into a cold flat that smelt like incense and spice.

"So, yeah, this is my house." Hajime locked the door behind them and took down his hood, shaking the water off his fringe lightly. "Just leave your shoes by the door."

Nagito looked around curiously as he kicked off his boots.

The apartment appeared to be made up of three basic spaces; the one that they stood in now was a neutrally toned, soft furnished kitchen / living area, with a puffy leather sofa and a neat kitchen. A door to the left lead to a large bedroom with clothes strewn across the floor and a big bed covered in blankets, curtains drawn but bedside lamp on. The other area was a tiled bathroom.

"Ughh." Hajime dropped the sweets bag and carefully took off Nagito's jacket, folding it in half and placing it gently on the back of his couch. "I'm soaked through."

"Same." Nagito picked at his wet shirt as it stuck to his chest as he awkwardly hovered near the door. 

"Hey, come in. Sit down or something, I'll get some towels." Hajime gestured to the room as he disappeared off into his bedroom. Quietly, Nagito perched on Hajime's couch, sitting carefully so he got as little of the leather wet as possible and looking around. He examined the posters on the wall, one of Doctor Who, one of some drag queen called Trixie Mattel and one of Panic! at the Disco. Nagito almost gasped out loud; so Hajime did like "emo" music!

"Hey." Hajime chucked a fluffy white towel at Nagito and it landed on the sofa next to him. Nagito picked it up and slowly began to dry his bare arms as Hajime came round to sit next to him on the sofa. Nagito stopped dead when he realised that Hajime didn't have his sweater on anymore.

"Do you want something hot to drink or whatever? You look kind of like you're gonna die." Hajime said, rubbing his shoulders dry with his towel.

"I-I-I'm fine." Nagito stuttered, part nervousness at shirtless Hajime and part teeth chattering because of being freezing.

"You sure? I could make tea or...?" Hajime discarded his towel on the floor and stood up, heading towards the kitchen.

"I mean, if it's no p-problem..." Nagito said, awkwarly patting his drenched shirt with his towel. There was no way he was getting dry without getting this off, but...

"What kind of tea do you want?" Hajime said, loudly because the wind and rain were rattling against the windows.

"Uh, normal... tea?" Nagito said questioningly. He didn't know types of tea! What was he supposed to say?

"Sure." 

Nagito looked down at his dishevelled, soaked through form. He was freezing, even in the shelter of Hajime's house.

"Hey, you know it's fine if you wanna take off your wet clothes? You're shivering a lot.." Hajime looked at him from the kitchen, pouring water into the kettle. Nagito blushed a bit, and shrugged quietly as he quickly took off his t shirt, leaving it on the floor next to Hajime's towel as he began to dry his chest. After a while, he became aware of Hajime watching him closely, but decided to ignore it. Was Hajime judging him? Or maybe... He liked it? 

"Here's your tea." Hajime was suddenly sitting down next to him, damp jeans sliding on the leather sofa as he handed a steaming mug to Nagito. Nagito took a sip of the tea, glad to find that Hajime had added sugar and milk and glad for the warmth it gave his hands. Next to him, Hajime kept glancing from his tea to Nagito, and Nagito felt his face heating up.

"I didn't know how you took your tea, so I put sugar and milk in it, is that okay?" Hajime took a sip from his mug.

"Yeah, it's good." Nagito said, taking a quick peak at Hajime's chest as he closed his eyes and drank.

Silence fell, again, and Hajime seemed to get more and mote figety next to Hajime by the second.

"Is something wrong, Hajime?"

"Ah-What?!" Hajime coughed into his tea, face going deep red. "I-it's nothing!" 

"It doesn't seem like nothing.." Nagito was aware of how Hajime had crossed his legs very tightly.

"I'm fine." Hajime gulped, placing down his tea and looking at the floor. "It's nothing."

"... Hajime?" Nagito carefully put his tea down next to Hajime's.

"... What."

"May I kiss you?" 

Hajime's head shot up, and his (beautiful) eyes widened.

"...Yes."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bert cocaine
> 
> okay first things first this is like an entire month late so im sorry ive been trying to write more but life is shitty rn and im tired of everything . also i got a proofreader / editor (you know who you are) so thank you to them for giving me motivation to write . and thank you for reading ! all of you . this has over 1000 notes now ?? what ?? wow . thank you very very much ! hopefully the next chapter will be up within a couple of weeks . 
> 
> if anyone has any feedback or whatever pls comment or hmu on my instagram @hetalinati or my tumblr @kokichimaeda . thank you !!!


	7. wink wonk

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> s u c c

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: this is a smut chapter so if you dont like that stuff or youre in front of your family or youre on a school wifi network pls turn back or go onto the next chapter ! there isnt much plot , so you can still understand the story without reading this if you dont want to

Nagito internally cursed the combination of his wet jeans and Hajime's leather sofa as he tried to to sit up straight as Hajime straddled him, gripping the other's waist tightly and focusing on not falling off the couch and kissing Hajime at the same time. It was odd how it had gotten to this; one second, they'd been drinking tea, the next second Hajime was on top of him, hands in his hair and kissing him like there was no tomorrow.

Nagito had one hand in the arch of Hajime's back, holding him up, but he let the other hand go down to rest on Hajime's ass, squeezing gently through the damp denim of his jeans. At the contact, Hajime murmured something inaudible in his ear, pulling Nagito closer into the kiss with two hands on his head.

A string of glistening saliva strung between their mouths as they broke apart, and Nagito looked up at Hajime's face carefully, following every inch of his movement to see for any signs of discomfort or protesting.

"Is this okay?" he asked for what felt like the millionth time this one make out session, and yet again Hajime smiled.

"Yes, this is good. Please, keep going." he stroked Nagito's hair fondly.

Nagito leant up, pressing his lips gently to Hajime's neck before kissing, lightly at first, then more heavily, sucking until it left a dark red bruise. Hajime whimpered at every contact Nagito had with his neck, but it seemed to be a good whimpering, so Nagito continued until most of the left side of Hajime's neck was covered in hickeys and Hajime's legs were shaking next to his.

"Hhnngn." Hajime made a small, breathy noise of pleasure in his throat as he wrapped his arms around Nagito's neck. "You're a good kisser."

Nagito merely chuckled at the remark, bringing himself up to peck Hajime's lips again as he moved his hand from Hajime's ass round to the front if his body to rest on the inside of his right thigh.

"O-oh." Hajime inhaled quickly and gasped a little as Nagito began to rub his crotch slowly, playing with the growing bulge in his pants teasingly as he licked down his bare chest. Hajime's body tensed up in his grasp, shivering and moving along in time with Nagito's touches, eagerly attempting to touch whatever part of Nagito's body he could find. Quietly, Hajime broke the kiss only to silently unzip his jeans, offering Nagito what was in his pants before going back to the kiss. Nagito took the hint and slowly pushed his hands under Hajime's jeans and into his underwear, lightly touching the base of his half erect dick.

"Mmh, your hands are cold.." Hajime pouted, moving his hips and sitting up slightly. Reaching down, he pulled Nagito's hands quickly out of his pants and gripped them in his, rubbing them gently. "It's cold in here.. Do you want to go through to.. my bedroom?" 

Nagito and Hajime blushed at the same time, but Nagito nodded quickly, so Hajime stood up, not letting go of his hand, and lead him through to the bedroom.

Nagito barely had any time to look around the room before Hajime pushed him onto the bed and crawled over to sit on top of him again, straddling right over Nagito's crotch. Nagito expected him to give him access to inside his pants again, but instead Hajime shuffled back and traced his hands down from Nagito's chest to his jeans, playing with the zipper over Nagito's crotch absent mindedly.

"Is it okay if I suck.. suck your dick?" Hajime asked quietly, looking away and blushing heavily.

"Hh.. Yes.." Nagito said, a little bit more desperately than he planned. Hajime nodded, slowly unzipping Nagito's jeans and pulling down the rim to expose his boxers. Smirking, he buried his nose into the fabric, pushing and sucking through the underwear as Nagito tried his hardest not to make a sound, chewing his lip and swallowing deeply as his stomach clenched. The position was embarrassing, perhaps shameful, and Nagito found himself blushing more heavily than ever, but Hajime didnt seem to even notice or think about what he was doing as he pulled Nagito's boxers down teasingly slowly, gently letting his erection rise up (rise up, rise up, EliZa. id love to take your time , ill see you on the othe r side . r ais e a gla s s to f r e E D oM)

"Hm, I'm a little disappointed. I expected your pubes to be white like your hair." Hajime muttered as he ran a hand up Nagito's penis slowly. As Nagito went to speak, he flashed a smile and closed his mouth around the tip of Nagito's erection. 

"A-ah." A wave of pleasure and arousal washed over Nagito, and he lay his head back slowly, resisting the urge to arch his back and thrust his hips. Hajime was swirling his tongue around the top part of his penis, whilst also jerking up and down on the bottom half with one hand, the other hand gripped Nagito's quaking thigh, and Nagito couldn't help but feel like he was extremely good at this for a twenty five year old hitman. Perhaps Hajime was an ex-prostitute or something? That might be stretching it a little, but Nagito was sure that Hajime must have some backstory as to how he seemed so comfortable like this; even aside from that, Nagito was well aware or how little he knew about Hajime's past, but he was very excited to find it. Despite the danger and plain stupidity to be building a relationship with someone he was supposed to hate, Nagito sure was enjoying it.

Even more so as Hajime flicked his tongue in a specific spot on the tip, brushing it gently and using his saliva to pump the base of the penis even faster. Nagito could feel the pressure building up, lifting his head to watch Hajime at work, marvelling at the way his eyelashes were fluttered closed and the concentrated look on his face, the sweat droplets on his temple, the heat in his cheeks.

Nagito reached orgasm very quickly, possibly because of his it has been months since he'd been fulfilled like this, possibly just because it was Hajime blowing him and he'd wanted this for so long and oh my god he was amazing at this. He arched his back, pushing his erection further down Hajime's throat as he came, groaning as Hajime gasped around him and swallowed everything he ejaculated. 

Part of Nagito was exhausted and wanted instantly to drop off to sleep, but most of him new that there was no way Hajime was done with him yet. He pushed himself up on his elbows, still recovering, watching Hajime wipe his mouth and wonder what would come next. Hajime sat up on his knees.

"You up for round two?" Hajime asked, brushing a piece of hair out of his face.

"Yeah." Nagito nodded, sitting up fully and pulling in Hajime for a soft kiss.

It definitely didn't stay like that. Almost instantly, Hajime climbed on top of him, shoulder blades arching as he opened his mouth onto Nagito's, their bare chests touching, every place their skin met burning in a sharp heat that stood out against the chill of the room. 

Hajime pulled down his jeans hurriedly, tearing off his boxers with them and kicking them off the side of the bed. Erection growing at the sight of Hajime fully unclothed, Nagito reached forward to touch the newly unveiled areas of Hajime's body, only to be stopped by a gentle smack of Hajime's hand.

"Shh, hang on." he whispered and climbed off of Nagito and reached down into the bedside table drawer. Nagito discreetly looked at Hajime's exposed ass until he returned and placed a bottle of lube and a condom in Nagito's hand.

Nagito stared at them blankly for a few seconds and Hajime flushed.

"It'll just... be easier. And safer... Not that I think you have an STD, I don't think that, and I don't have an STD, at least I don't think so, but it's just better to be safe." he rambled quietly, watching Nagito's face intensely. "Sorry if it ruins the mood..."

Nagito didn't really hear what Hajime said, it didn't really matter because here was Hajime, right here, right now, kneeling in his lap with no clothes on giving him all the material he needed to fuck him. Why would anything else matter?

Wait.

"Is this okay with you?" Nagito placed his right hand gently on Hajime's hip, looking up at the shivering man.

"What?" Hajime fiddled with his hands, distracted somehow. He seemed, suddenly, a little nervous.

"Can I touch you like this? Is it okay if I do..." he gestured to the lube and condom in his hand. "Things to you with these?"

"Of course it is." Hajime said, wrapping his arms around Nagito's neck almost lovingly and smiling comfortingly. "What are you waiting for?"

That was all that Nagito needed. With one hand, he squeezed some lube onto his fingers and slowly snaked his arm around Hajime's waist, over his ass, down to find his opening. All the while, Hajime kissed gently along the side of Nagito's neck, biting the skin beneath his ear and humming softly as Nagito slid a finger into his ass. His body tensed up above Nagito's, beautiful and strong and alive, sweat mixing with already damp skin to produce a sheen of glimmering highlight from the distant light of the other room. His thighs moved against Nagito's as he grunted and squirmed after Nagito added another finger to his thrusting, lip detaching from his neck and instead clashing with his lips, feverishly kissing, sloppy, all tongue, as if he was just desperate for any kind of contact with Nagito, longing for the click that they felt when they touched, like a key in a lock or two jigsaw pieces that fit perfectly together. 

Nagito removed his fingers slowly, rubbing comforting circles along Hajime's hip as the other groaned, reaching for the condom only to find Hajime grabbed it first. Hands shaking slightly, Hajime tore the package and Nagito guided his hands as he lowered the condom down over Nagito's once again fully erect dick, Nagito flinching wherever Hajime put extra pressure on his skin. 

"You ready?" Nagito gasped out, holding Hajime's hips above his firmly, moving them into place to line up Hajime's opening with his dick. 

"I - Hang on a minute.." Hajime took three deep breathes, placing one hand on each of Nagito shoulders and preparing himself. "... Yes."

Hajime bent his knees as Nagito pulled down his hips, sliding onto his erection cleanly until he was sat fully on top of Nagito. Hajime yelped out slightly as he took it all, tears forming in his eyes as his chest pushed forwards and he buried his head into the crook of Nagito's shoulder.

"A-ah... Oh my god..." Hajime whimpered and exhaled shakily, his grip on Nagito's shoulder's vice tight. "You're, hn, bigger than I remember.."

Nagito chuckled heavily from the back of his throat, placing an arm over Hajime's shoulder. "You're very.. tight.."

"Hh.. I haven't really done ... this in a while.." Hajime wriggled a little, getting used to the feeling. Nagito watched a bead of sweat trail down his chest. "Maybe.. move a bit now? Be- go slow, though."

"Hhn." Nagito secured his grip on either side of Hajime's waist and slowly pulled himself out of Hajime, lifting up Hajime's hips gently to go with the movement. Hajime gasped and swallowed loudly, fingers gripping tight enough to leave imprints on Nagito's freckled shoulders as his legs shook almost violently.

"Ah- Are you okay?" Nagito felt so inexperienced in this, especially with Hajime. He didn't know what Hajime liked, what he disliked, how much was too much for him. He needed to be careful, there was no way he could hurt Hajime, not anymore.

"Yes.. " Hajime stuttered, breathing heavy. "Ahh-" 

Pushing down on Hajime's hips, Nagito guided him down to take his dick in again, resisting the urge to moan loudly at the friction. Hajime was making quiet noises from the back of his throat, whimpering and softly moaning as he clung to Nagito's body for support.

"... Keep going.." Hajime whispered, moving himself up again, eager yet still shaking nervously, upper lip trembling as Nagito kissed him and thrusted carefully.

It was very quiet in Hajime's house; the only sounds were that of their breathing, almost in time with each other, broken occasionally with quiet groans and sharp inhales, the distant hum which Nagito assumed to be coming from some machine in Hajime's kitchen, and the even more distant, far away buzz of the bypass that snaked out of the town and passed nearby the apartment buildings on its way out.

Hajime was becoming more and more restless in Nagito's arms, body burning hot against his, moving and brushing skin against skin with sensation that made his hair stand on end and his eyes catch fire. Their kisses became salty with tears that streamed down his crimson cheeks to land on Nagito's waiting tongue, his moans grew louder and louder and louder. Nagito knew he'd found the spot, the right place that would drive Hajime over the edge, and in a last moment of lusty unthinking, he laced his fingers around Hajime's neglected erection and rubbed it lightly until Hajime's voice got caught in his throat and he came all over Nagito's shaking hand, body stretching into orgasm. Time stood still, and Nagito too let himself go, holding onto Hajime and opening his mouth wide as his body relaxed.

It was quiet before, but in the minutes after they came, Nagito and Hajime were left in deafening, shattering silence. All stamina gone, Nagito tumbled backwards into the bed, Hajime falling down on top of him and laying against his chest. It took a few minutes to build up the strength, but eventually Nagito pulled himself out of Hajime, making sure to take the spent condom with him, afterwards abandoning it on the floor. Hajime made a soft humming noise and rolled off of Nagito to the right side of the bed, and Nagito followed and took the left side, half heartedly grabbing a handful of blankets to cover up a small portion of his body from the chilly air. His heart pumped in his ears, and his head throbbed, and his body was numb from overstimulation and all he could see through the squint of his eyes and the dim of the room was the slow rising and falling of Hajime's chest. His last thought before passing out was to wrap his arms around Hajime's shoulders, but his body gave up before he could even reach.

Nagito had no dreams at all that night.  
★

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey ! thank you for reading !
> 
> i managed to update a lot sooner this time , im going to try and start writing shorter chapters but uploading more frequently because this story really needs to move along . this was v fun to write though , and thank you to everybody whos been reading so far ! it means a lot to me , and im trying to write a lot more , even though ive been feeling pretty bad lately , writing is a good distraction . thank you !
> 
> if you have any questions or feedback , feel free to comment or message me on my tumblr (kokichimaeda) or my instagram (hetalinati) thank you for over 100 kudos btw !! im so glad that people don't dislike this


	8. a big oof

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> pancakes & depressing backstories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW : mentions of plane crashes , homophobia , kind of abusive families .

It was freezing cold when Nagito woke up, not the type of frosty cold that bites your skin, and not the type of rainy cold when the wind blows all the heat from your body, the kind of cold that develops in your body when you haven't moved for very long and all warmth has left your veins and you're too empty to move.

The bed sheets beneath him were cold as well, icy against his bare torso, and his feet were frozen since the blankets that had been covering them were kicked to the side. Nagito was aware that he was in Hajime's apartment, and aware that Hajime was right next to him (his breathing was one of the few sounds in the room, apart from a couple of birds chirping outside and the ever going soft roar of the road nearbye).

Nagito rolled over to his right, slowly and quietly, so not to disturb Hajime if he was still awake, and glanced at his form. Hajime seemed to have most of the bedcovers over him, but Nagito could still see his exposed chest and legs underneath it. It took Nagito a stupidly long time to notice that Hajime's eyes were open.

"Oh." he said quietly, and Hajime instantly shifted to look at him, eyes and smile wide.

"Oh! .. Good morning." he smiled warmly, sleepy eyes drooping and voice heavy and croaky. Judging by the sleep dust in his eyes and the ruffled mess of his hair, he couldn't have been awake for long.

"Good morning." Nagito echoed, moving one leg over the other to try and produce warmth, meeting eyes with Hajime and smiling sleepily. A moment of silence passed before Hajime sprung to life again.

"Ah! Would you like some blanket? I'm sorry, I took it all by accident.." he rolled towards Nagito and flung a large amount of the duvet over him, making sure it was equally spaced out between the both of them.

".. Thank you." Nagito said, very glad for the protection of the blankets from the cold air, already warmed by Hajime.

"You must be freezing.." Hajime reached out under the blankets and somehow found Nagito's hand. "Jeez, your skin feels like ice.. Here.."

He shuffled towards Nagito, gripping his hands, and pressed his body against his, hot, smooth skin meeting with cold. He tangled his bare legs with Nagito's (who somehow still had his jeans on), and wrapped his arms around his waist, pulling Nagito in against hid chest.  
"Hmm.. I'll warm you up." he rubbed a warm circle into Nagito's back with his hand, and gently kissed Nagito's cheek, since their faces were merely inches away.  
".. Thanks." Nagito smiled softly as his face brushed against Hajime's. From the dimmed light crashing through the curtains reflecting off the white walls, he could make out more details than he'd ever been able to see before on Hajime's face; his neat, dark, probably styled eyebrows, the tiny baby hairs by his ears and forehead, the small freckles, one below his lips and the other on the left side of his nose. He held his hand against Hajime's cheek, running his thumb down across the soft skin and over his lips, slightly dry and cracked from the night.

"... You're so beautiful." Nagito whispered, grinning as he watched Hajime's eyes lighten up and flicker down shyly.

"So are you." Nagito wasn't expecting that, so unfortunately his face went bright red and his hand flew up to run through his hair like it always did when he was embarrassed.

"No, no... I'm not..." he mumbled, and Hajime giggled.

"Of course you are! You look like a model or something." he held Nagito's face in his hands. "You have really high cheekbones, and your eyes are really pale and striking. And you have freckles!" he pecked Nagito's lips as Nagito blushed darker red.

"Hah... Thank you! I guess..." he stuttered, and went to start listing all the beautiful things about Hajime in return, but Hajime had already moved on.

"Can I plait your hair?" he whispered, fingers tangling in Nagito's curls. 

"Yeah, okay." Nagito blushed even harder.

"Mm, could you roll over? Yeah, like that so your back is facing me and I have a better position for plaiting." Nagito obliged, shifting until he was facing the window and Hajime's warm hands were in his hair.

"Has it always been like this?" Hajime asked as he began to work on strands of Nagito's hair.

"What?" Nagito replied.

"Your hair. Has it always been white?" Nagito could feel Hajime's warm breath against the back of his neck.

"Oh, no.. It used to be a kind of mousy gingery brown." Nagito said, pulling a piece of blanket to cover his leg more.

"Ah, when did it start growing white, then?" 

Nagito gulped. He knew he would have to tell Hajime about his past sooner or later, but... Was now really the time? What would he think? Would Nagito even be able to tell him the story?

"Are you okay?" Nagito must have been silent for a while, because Hajime had placed his hand on his hip and hugged into his back gently in concern.

"A-ah... I'm fine, just..." Nagito took a shaky breath. "It's kind of a... bad story." 

"About your hair?" Hajime hugged him tighter, although one hand was still holding Nagito's hair.

"Yeah.." Nagito could feel his heartbeat speeding up, so he took a few deep breaths. 

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to, it's fine." Hajime rubbed Nagito's head lightly through his hair. 

"No... You'd have to find out eventually... I just don't usually tell many people.

"Please, you don't have to tell me." Hajime insisted.

"No. I will... Just please, promise you won't treat me differently afterwards, okay?"

"Promise." Hajime nodded and hugged him.

"Well.." Nagito sighed gently. "I- My parents were really rich, like, super rich, they both ran their own companies and we had like three big houses and stuff. I was their only child, because there were complications with my birth and my mum couldn't have any more children, so I was kind of spoiled and stuff. But anyway, we used to go on these big trips and holidays, with their jobs and also because my dad's family came from Japan and all their friends lived there too, so every July and December we'd go over to Japan."

"Uh huh." Hajime nodded, playing with a lock of Nagito's hair casually.

"Well... One time, when I was ten... On the flight over, the plane engines... malfunctioned, and the plane... the plane crashed." 

Hajime inhaled sharply, and Nagito felt his body tense up.

"Oh.."

"The plane crashed and everyone on board died apart from me." Nagito whispered. Hajime was frozen still against him, but it was too late to stop.

"They called me a 'miracle child'" Nagito could barely hear his own voice, it was so quiet. "I was hardly even scratched. But... everything was gone. All my parents money and property was put into the custody of some rich cousin of my mum, she died a few years ago. I had to go to a care home, since there was no one who wanted to take me in, and I just... didn't fit in there. It was so different from the sheltered upbringing I had, and the other kids thought I was weird and I had to go to school instead of tutoring and I had nothing... After the accident, my hair started growing white. They said it was shock, and it's been like that ever since." 

Hajime's lips were trembling.

"I'm... so sorry." he murmured, pulling both arms around Nagito and burying his face into his back. "I had no idea.."

"You don't have to say sorry..."

"No, I just..." he tightened his grip around Nagito even more. "I'm so lucky to have you here."

As those words left Hajime's lips, Nagito himself realised too that he was so lucky to have Hajime. Hajime who seemed to truly care about him, who touched him out of choice, who wanted to be with him. If only he wasn't supposed to be his enemy. 

That didn't matter right now.

"I... I have all their money, and I even have the house still. When my mum's cousin died, it all went to me." Nagito held Hajime as tightly as he could.

"If you have all that money then why do you still work here?" Hajime asked softly.

"I... I don't know." Nagito puzzled over this often. He didn't need money, he didn't need to work, if he wanted to leave without getting his details released he could probably just pay someone. "I guess... I just need something to do? Without this.. I'd do nothing at all." 

"I get you... without Oogami, I don't know where I'd be." Hajime began fiddling with Nagito's hair again. "Probably homeless or something."

"W-what? Homeless..?" Nagito asked, meeting Hajime's sleepy eyes. 

"Hmm... Maybe. Before I joined Oogami I was... not in a very good place." 

"... How so?" Nagito wanted to question him, but was a little scared of being too forward.

"Ah.. My parents kicked me out when I was seventeen.."

At the response, Nagito grabbed Hajime's hands, that were wrapped around his torso, in his own. "Why would they do that?" To put it short, Nagito was furious that anyone could Not Want Hajime. How could they?

"They.. They were, I mean, they still are, very catholic. Very anti gay, you know. All life they preached to us about how "homosexually is a sin" and "we'll go to hell" and then they found a photo of me making out with a guy on social media and... I was gone." 

The way Hajime said "we" instead of "I" intrigued Nagito, but he chose not to mention it yet. "That's so terrible..." 

"I know right, but I guess it's partly my fault for not listening to them."

"No." Nagito looked straight at Hajime. "It's them who were wrong."

"Hm... I guess so..." Hajime nuzzled his face into Nagito's shoulder, yawing softly. 

"Were they strict? When you were growing up?" Nagito whispered.

"Hm? Who, my parents?" 

"Yeah."

"Yeah, they were.. They always expected so much of us, and they were extra hard on me because my brothers were both such a high achievers.."

"Wait... You have brothers?" Nagito was sure he misheard Hajime.

"Yes..? I thought you knew Izuru?" 

Wait, what? Izuru Kamukura? As in Elite Oogami Killer Izuru Kamukura? Hajime had a brother ? Brothers? 

"K-Kamukura is your brother??" 

"Yes?? He's my twin?" 

"I- I thought you guys were friends with benefits or something!!" 

Nagito wanted to slap himself. It was so obvious, now he thought of it; it had been a while since he'd seen Izuru last, but now he could see the similarity in his and Hajime's faces, their height and bodies and how close they seemed to be. Why hadn't he noticed before? 

"Eww, no, we're twins." Hajime giggled and shuffled in bed gently.

"Are you identical twins?" Nagito asked, flabbergasted.

"Yeah, we are, but we don't really look alike anymore." Hajime explained, pulling one of his hands from Nagito's grasp to slowly run through his ruffled hair. "We used to have the same hair, wear the same clothes, have the same eyes, but he started growing his hair when he was like twelve and never stopped. Mum hated it. And nowadays I guess he works out differently to me so he's taller and skinnier and stuff. And he wears contacts for some reason. I don't know why he does that."

Nagito smiled. "Why does he have a different last name to you?" 

"Oh, after I was kicked out, Izuru left about a week later because he was really angry at our parents and stuff. So angry that he changed his last name, to be less related to them. That's what I'd assume anyway."

"Wow..." Nagito shivered as Hajime placed his hand onto Nagito's shoulder. "You said brothers? With an S? Do you have more than one?"

"Oh, yeah, I do, only one. His name is Yasuke, and he's like thirty five, I think. I can't remember much of him because he moved out when we moved from Spain to England and stayed in Spain, and I was like eleven then. He has a wife now, apparent-"

"You lived in Spain?" 

"Yes, my mum is spanish. And my dad is half spanish, half english, I thought you knew this." Hajime laughed again, and Nagito wondered if he did know this, maybe he'd forgotten. It seemed like a pretty big thing to forget.

"Do you speak spanish?" 

"Oh, yeah! I do, but I'm a bit rusty, since I don't know anyone to speak spanish to."

Nagito wanted to ask Hajime to say something in spanish, but he was a bit worried that it would annoy him. One time, a while ago, he'd asked Sonia, who came from France, to say something in french and she went off on this rant about how much it pissed her off when people asked her that.

"That's so cool." Nagito smiled. "I wish I could speak another language. I used to know a little bit of japanese, when me and my parent used to travel there a lot, but I've forgotten most of it now.." 

"I could teach you spanish someday!" Hajime said, hugging him tighter, his legs wrapping over Nagito's. Quietly, Nagito rolled over to face Hajime, and when their eyes met they both smiled.

"... This is nice." Hajime whispered with a smile hinted with sadness.

"Yeah... yeah, it is." Nagito found that his hand was still wrapped around Hajime's, and he squeezed it warmly. "I wish we could stay like this forever.." 

"Me too. That would be good.." 

Despite the kind words, Nagito and Hajime both knew it was a heartbreaking moment, since the fact that they were so happy like this meant they were destined for disaster. There was no way they could have what they wanted forever.

".. What are we gonna do?" Hajime asked, not really expecting an answer.

"I... I have no idea." Carelessly, Nagito brushed Hajime's hand to his lips and kissed lightly. "...But it doesn't matter right now, does it?"

".. I guess not." Hajime chuckled, cheeks covered in a layer of mild blush. "Hey, how about I make some breakfast?" 

"That would be good." Nagito smiled, he'd been smiling so much lately, and he hugged Hajime tighter than ever before.

"You're going to have to let me up if you want breakfast." Hajime said, shuffling. Nagito loosened his grip around Hajime and let him sit up, watching as he stretched and smirking as he saw the hickeys from the night before.

Hajime wriggled towards the side of the bed and stood up, completely naked, Nagito now realised, and quietly walked over to the chest of drawers by the door. Crouching down, he pulled out a pair of blue boxers and slipped them on, followed by a loose black t shirt that was so big on him it could have almost been a dress, perhaps if it was a little longer.

Nagito followed and stood up, yawning quietly and stretching out his tight shoulders. He was mildly aware that there was dried semen on his jeans, and that the cold air was stinging his bare chest, but he was pretty distracted by watching Hajime apply lip balm from a small metal pot.

"Oh, do you want a shirt or something?" Hajime asked, gesturing to Nagito's chest.

"Oh, yeah, thank you." Hajime chucked Nagito another large t shirt from his drawer, made of a light grey fabric. Nagito pulled it over his head slowly, breathing in Hajime's scent in the material, and it instantly relaxed him. Hajime had already set off out of the room, and Nagito followed, looking curiously around the flat now that it was lighter. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected Hajime’s house to be like, but this definitely seemed to fit.

Hajime was in the kitchen area, clearing up some stuff, and he beckoned Nagito over.  
“So… I was thinking I could make pancakes? Or there’s just cereal or toast if you want it.” 

“Pancakes sound great.” Nagito smiled enthusiastically, leaning on the countertop.

“Okay! The coffee machine is on if you want coffee, by the way.” he gestured to a scary looking silver machine on the counter next to the fridge. 

“O-kay,” Nagito wasn’t the hugest fan of coffee, it was always either too sweet or too bitter, but Hajime had mentioned how much he liked coffee yesterday, so like a schoolchild trying to fit in with the popular kids Nagito decided to make himself coffee.

“Just take one of the mugs on the counter,” Hajime instructed as Nagito approached the machine, so he picked up a mug at random, one with a big letter H on (for Hajime obviously, not the h meme). Next, he faced the machine; it was… extremely complex. There were only three buttons, two of which were glowing red, but with no indication as to what each did. Nagito realised he had no idea how coffee was made. Did he need to grind up the coffee beans and put them in the machine or what?

“Uh… How do I…?” Nagito muttered quietly, a plea for help. Hajime put down the frying pan he was holding and came over to him.

“Oh, you need to put more coffee in it.” Nagito moved aside as Hajime pulled this thing out of the machine and emptied this brown mush from it, replacing it was fresh powered coffee from a tin. He then put it back into the machine, and placed the mug underneath it.

“You’re all ready to go. Just press the middle button.” Nagito pressed the middle button as told, and the machine shuddered to life with a loud whirring noise. Nagito watched, fascinated, as brown liquid came trickling out of the machine. Coffee.

“Don’t let it fill up too much if you want milk in it.” Hajime was watching him carefully as he mixed the pancake batter.

“Okay... When do I stop it?” 

“Uhh, depends how much milk you want.” he put down the bowl he was holding and came to look. “That should be enough.” He pressed the middle button again quickly and took out the mug, grabbing the milk carton from the countertop and pouring until the mug was almost full. “There.”

“Thank you.” Nagito said as he took the mug off Hajime. That was embarrassing. 

“Why don’t you go sit down on the couch? You can put the TV on, if you want, while I finish these.” 

“Okay.”

Nagito perched awkwardly on the leather couch, remembering how he’d almost slid off the smooth fabric the night before during his and Hajime’s makeout. As with everything in Nagito’s life, it was taking him a while to process that him and Hajime had actually… you know, “done the sex”, since this time yesterday he’d been an anxious emotional wreck having his hair forcefully brushed by Ouma, and now he was sitting in Hajime’s house, on Hajime’s sofa, with a cup of coffee that Hajime had made him and hickeys from Hajime’s mouth on his neck.

As Hajime had said, Nagito picked up the TV remote and pressed the on button. The screen flickered to life on the BBC Breakfast News, and since he had no idea how the remote worked, Nagito decided to keep it as that. As he watched Carol Kirkwood predict more rain for the day, Nagito took a sip of his coffee and instantly choked. Shit! There was no sugar in it, and Nagito wasn’t expecting it, so he suddenly inhaled and a load of coffee went with it.

“You good?” Hajime craned his neck from the kitchen, frying pan sizzling with pancake in hand.

“I- Hhcg- yeah.” Nagito put the coffee down onto the table in front of him and coughed into his hand. Jesus, who knew drinking coffee was such an intense experience. 

Nagito looked around more, and noticed that what he’d thought to be a big window was in fact two glass doors that opened inside, with a fence over the edge, like a balcony but just a door. Instantly, Nagito wanted to go over and open the doors and peer over the edge, but Hajime was calling him.

“They’re ready!” Hajime had set two plates out on the small wooden table that was in front of the kitchen counter, and as Nagito approached he placed a pile of pancakes in between them.

“I hope this is enough, but I can make more if you want.” he said as he put a jar of honey and a pot of Nutella down on the table. “I didn’t know what fillings you like either, so I’ve got lots of stuff. There’s jam and butter as well if you want it, if you want anything just say.”

“This looks great.” Nagito smiled reassuringly as he slid into the padded chair. “I don’t need anything else.” 

Hajime raised his eyebrows, still poised to go into the kitchen, and Nagito smiled at him again. Letting out a sigh, Hajime relaxed and crumpled into the chair in front of Nagito.

“Well, tuck in.” Hajime said, helping himself to a pancake from the pile eagerly. Nagito’s stomach grumbled as he took one too, reaching for the Nutella only to find that Hajime had got to it first.

“Ope, sorry.” Hajime hurriedly smothered his pancake in Nutella before sliding the jar across the table to Nagito. “There you go.”

“Thanks.” Nagito took the spoon that Hajime handed to him and carefully covered the pancake in Nutella. He hadn’t had this stuff since he was a child, and the taste seemed comforting somehow. Perhaps that was just Hajime’s presence. Silence had fallen between them again, and Nagito felt like this must be what going to a sleepover as a child was like; Nagito never went to a sleepover, since he was homeschooled until the accident, and after that the care home hadn’t allowed them (not like Nagito had many friends anyway), but they always seemed like such a surreal experience. Maybe this was a sleepover, as such.

“... So you lived in Spain?” Nagito asked, just to start up a new conversation. Hajime’s mouth was full of pancake.

“Mmh, yeah, until I was eleven. We had to move to Birmingham because of Dad’s job, but my parents live back in Spain now.” Hajime swallowed his mouthful of pancake. “It’s probably better that they don’t live over here, since they don’t know about the whole hitman thing.”

“Do you think they’d be angry if they found out what you do?” Nagito asked curiously.

“I… I don’t really know. For me, they’d probably see it as yet another excuse to hate me, but with Izuru… They still like him, you see.” Hajime took a sip of coffee. “Because he’s so clever and talented and never got into trouble. He always did what they said until I was gone, and I never got why. They were so hard on him? They forced us all to work extra hard, but him the most, because he was some child prodigy or something.”

“Yeah..”

“And he’s just like me? Maybe even worse? He drinks and smokes and hooks up with random strangers and kills people for a living, but still it’s me who they hate, and even if they did know about everything he does he’d definitely be let off easier than me.”

“That’s so unfair..” Nagito reached for his second pancake.

“I know right… The funny thing is, he hates them more than I do. When they kicked me out, he was so angry, and he always argued with Yasuke about them too. But they still contact him, not me. I don’t know, he was always the favourite child.” Hajime sighed. “Sorry, this is depressing, isn’t it?”

“No, no, it’s fine.” Nagito was genuinely intrigued about Hajime’s past.

“Mm… Hey, I just remembered something.” Hajime stood up so quickly Nagito almost jumped. 

“What is it??” Hajime walked quickly over to the couch and picked up the plastic bag on the floor.

“We still have all these sweets!” He laughed and returned to the table. “We can eat these as well as pancakes.”

Nagito laughed, not sure what to say. Then he spotted a tuft of brown fur sticking out of the bag. “Hey… The dog..”

“Oh yeah!” Hajime grinned even wider, pulling the stuffed toy from the bag gently. “We didn’t give him a name, did we?”

“No..” Nagito pondered. 

“Do you have any ideas?” 

“... How about Hope?”

“Hope?” Hajime’s face softened. “Yeah.. yeah, that’s good.” He stroked the toy’s head slowly. “Hope… we could do with some of that, couldn’t we?”

“Very much so..”

Knock Knock!

Nagito jumped so hard he nearly fell off his seat, and Hajime froze. He placed the dog down with a questioning look at Nagito, before going over and quietly looking through the peephole in the door. Nagito saw the exact moment his jaw dropped.

“It’s Leon Kuwata! From Oogami! Fuck-” Hajime mouthed, rushing over to Nagito. “You’re gonna have to hide, I- Fuck, fuck!”

As Hajime dragged him into the bedroom, Nagito heard the door knock again, and Hajime swore again as he opened the door to his wardrobe and shoved Nagito inside.

“Be quiet, I’ll get rid of him, okay.” 

“Okay?” Nagito flattened against the wall.

“It’s gonna be okay.. Just wait a few minutes.” 

Hajime shut the closet door quietly, and Nagito was left in darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a a a a
> 
> im so sorry its been like 3 months since i last updated jfknjdfs i was busy with christmas and then school started back and i almost lost the half written file for this so im sorry . on a more positive note , this has 2000 hits now ?? wow ???? thank you to everyone for reading , im really really going to try and get back into writing this regularly . per usual , if you have any feedback or questions please comment or hmu on my tumblr @kokichimaeda or my instagram @hetalinati . im very sorry for the long wait , and im sorry if this is rushed .


	9. huh? huh? huh?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ouma continues to be a lil bitch lol

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: i cant think of anything bad in this chapter woops

"Leon! Hey!" Nagito could only listen to what was going on, the rest of his senses blocked out by the darkness of the closet. It was cramped, since his legs were so long, and Hajime's clothes were tickling him all over.

"Yooo Hajime." Nagito had a... vague idea of who Leon Kuwata was. He'd never met him face to face, but he'd heard the name around and he was pretty sure he had lots of piercings? Was that him or someone else? 

"What are you doing here?" Hajime's voice was a great source of comfort to Nagito.

"Oh, yeah. Boss called an emergency meeting, and you weren't answering your phone so they sent me over." Nagito could feel dread growing in his stomach.

"W-what? Why?" Hajime sounded just as startled as Nagito felt.

"Because Tsumugi thought it was a Great fucking idea to kidnap these 3 Fuyuhikos that she ran into and now we're stuck with them." 

"-Oh shit..."

Shit indeed, Hajime. Nagito's heart was beating unhealthily fast as he clamped a hand over his mouth. They had three of his coworkers kidnapped.

"I know right. Oogami wants everyone at HQ, including you. There's a car outside, we can go now." 

"I- uh, gimme like a minute, I need to get dressed and... sort out some stuff. Just like, sit down over there. I won't be long. "

"Alright!" 

Nagito heard Hajime slam the bedroom door behind him and lock it, before the wardrobe doors were flung open and Nagito was dazzled by bright light suddenly. 

"Did you hear all that?" Hajime whispered, pulling Nagito out of the closet (literally and metaphorically).

"Uh huh." Nagito glanced at the door. "Uh..How am I going to get out??"

"I don't know... I don't have any spare keys, and I can't just leave you here.. Maybe I could distract him while you sneak out?" 

"B-but what if he sees?? We'll Die, remember?" 

"I'll figure out something. Just give me a moment, it'll all be fine." Hajime didn't sound like he thought it would be fine.

"The window?" Nagito suggested. 

"We're three floors up." Hajime snapped.

"Fuck.." Nagito wondered if this was how he'd finally die. Shot by Leon Kuwata whilst trapped in Hajime's bedroom.

"Maybe I could leave after you?"

"And leave the house unlocked while I'm out? No." Hajime flopped onto his bed baclwards, gazing blankly at the ceiling.

"Ey Hajime? Is it okay if I use your loo?" Leon's voice called from outside. 

It was like a fucking miracle. Hajime's eyes lit up, and he turned to the door.

"Yeah!" he grabbed Nagito's hand and pulled him to the door, waited until they heard the click of the bathroom lock and then left the room. 

"Your jacket." Hajime whispered as he threw the denim at him and Nagito caught it. 

"Wait! This is your shirt-" Nagito hissed.

"Keep it. Wait, do you want Hope?"

"What??" 

"The dog-" 

"Uh, okay." Hajime chucked the stuffed toy at Nagito, before pushing him towards the door.

"Is that everything?"

"I think so." Hajime leaned up and kissed Nagito gently, on the lips. "I love you." 

"I- I love you too." Nagito stammered as Hajime silently unlocked the front door and beckoned him out.

"I'll text you, okay?" 

"Okay." Nagito heard a flush from the bathroom. Hajime gave him one last quick peck on the cheek and closed the door quickly, leaving Nagito standing in shock outside clutching his jacket and a plushy dog. 

Nagito walked down the stairs as quietly and swiftly as he could, pulling his phone out of his jacket pocket. Miraculously, it still had charge, and it also had 14 New Messages From Ouma. Uh oh.

O: so hows it going ;))))))))  
[thirteen hours later]  
O: bro where r u  
O: answer ur calls dude  
O: theres an emergency all staff meeting pls answer   
O: yo did he actually kill you  
O: where tF arE yOu  
O: b b r O  
O: bitCh wHaTs thE fUcK aRe yOu doinG  
O: ????????????????

The next message was a gif of Beyoncè crying.

O: im getting worried where the fuck are you  
O: dude please  
O: come 2 hq if u see this  
O: ):

Nagito quickly started texting as he slipped his jacket over his freezing arms. It was chilly outside, and Hajime's shirt wasnt very thick.

N: im on my way,

Ouma answered very quickly.

O: jdjdhhshs youre alive i thoughy u were dead jFc

N: im sorry my phone wasnt on

O: fuyu is rlly anrgy so try & get here soon

N: okay 

Nagito hurried away from Hajime's block of flats, in case Leon saw him on his way out.

Once he reached the main road, Nagito easily found a taxi. Not wanting to seem suspicious he asked to be dropped off in the centre of town, not too far from Fuyuhiko headquarters. Once there, he paid the driver with the money left from yesterdays date (yesterday? it seemed like years ago) and speedwalked to HQ, tucking Hope into his jacket pocket so he'd stop getting weird stares.

Ouma answerd the door for him and quickly ushered him, followed by a pretty awkwardly clingy hug. 

"They're all in the meeting room, you're the last to turn up. C'mon." he dragged Nagito up the stairs without another word.

Everyone stared at him when Nagito walked into the meeting room, and he instantly felt like he was doing something extremely wrong. 

"Finally." Kuzuryuu snapped, banging his hand down on the table. "You took your fucking time."

"I-I'm sorry, I ,, slept in past my alarm." Nagito lied, not very smoothly. He slid into a seat between Ouma and Makoto.

"Fine. We have more important matters to deal with." Peko said calmly, placing a hand on fuming Kuzuryuu's shoulder.

"Yeah!" the sudden shout made Nagito jump, and he spun to see Mondo standing, chair on the floor behind him, face raging red. "We need to go get Kiyotaka, Now!"

So that meant Kiyotaka was one of the kidnapped. Nagito scanned the meeting table, trying to think who else was gone.

"Calm down, Oowada. You know we can't just go to their HQ and just pick them up." snapped Byakuya.

"We can't leave them though! That's not right!" Gonta said, looking like he was going to cry.

"Yeah! What if they get killed??" yelled Tenko.

"Who've they taken?" Nagito leant over and whispered to Ouma.

"Kiyotaka, Kazuichi and Himiko." Nagito's stomach lurched.

"K-Kazuichi?? Oh my god.." 

"Yeah."

"We don't know if there's a reasoning behind these kidnappings or not." Kyouko said above the chatter. "That would affect how they're being held, and whether it's meant to be hostile."

"It's obviously a hostile attack." Miu yelled. "They took three of our people!"

"What I'm saying is," Kyouko ignored her. "Has anyone had a run in with Oogami lately? Something that could've triggered this."

Nagito almost laughed out loud, and he caught Ouma smirking at him too. This wasn't funny, but still. 

"No one?" Kyouko glanced around at the blank faces. "Then maybe this is just a random attack. That gives us less reason to worry."

"We don't know though!" Mondo was shouting again. "They're in danger."

"Again, we can't break into Oogami headquarters." said Kuzuryuu.

"We could." said Ouma promptly. All eyes fell onto him, and he grinned. 

"How?" asked Sonia quietly. 

"Go in late. There'll be people around, but they'd just be guards so we can kill them. Send in a bigish team, search the whole building, find them and get out. Simple."

Ouma smiled out into the silent room.

"That's ridiculous."

"Mm, I don't know.."

"It's worth a shot."

"It would be hard to pull off, but.."

"That wouldn't work."

"It's good enough."

Kuzuryuu had his head in his hands. All eyes were on him, anticipating. 

"It could work." he sighed. "We do really need to get them out of there."

"What if more people get taken?" asked Sayaka.

"We'd have to send in the best people." Kuzuryuu looked around the table.

"I'll go." called Mondo, standing up again. Kuzuryuu raised his eyebrows. 

"Okay. We'll need a range of talents though."

"Doesn't this seem risky?" Peko muttered into Kuzuryuu's ear.

"It's good enough." he replied. "Ouma?"

"Yes?" Ouma smiled innocently.

"Since it was your idea, why don't you go?"

"Of course!" Nagito could tell that this was just what Ouma wanted, and that scared him a bit. Per usual, he was planning something.

"That's two people.." Kuzu said, looking at the array of people to choose from.

"Gonta volunteers to go!" said Gonta, standing up with an innocent smile. Kuzu pondered it for a moment.

"Okay. Your strength will come in handy." Gonta grinned even wider, and sat down. "Anyone else desperate to go?"

"Me." Tenko raised her hand. "I need to save Himiko." 

"What about your ankle?" asked Kuzu.

"It's fine, I can go." Nagito peered under the table to see a thick cast around Tenko's ankle, with a pair of crutches laying on the floor next to her. He assumed she'd broken it, which meant she was in no place for fighting. 

"I'm sorry, but you're injured. You're not well enough, you can't even walk." Kuzu sighed, and Peko nodded in agreement.

"No! Please, you have to let me go, what about Himi-" 

"We'll save her. Don't worry." Kuzu brushed her off. "Anyone else?"

It was very quiet in the meeting room, for once. A small hand raised up.

"I can go." said Makoto quietly. Someone whispered something quietly. 

"Okay. That makes four." Kuzuryuu nodded. Makoto smiled weakly.

"I'll go." said Kyouko, glancing at Makoto, who gasped. 

"Kyouko, you don't have to-"

"Okay. One more person, I think." Kyouko smiled at Makoto, who raised his eyebrows questioningly.

No one else wanted to go, Nagito could tell from all the diverted glances, people looking at the floor and avoiding Kuzuryuu's gaze. He stared expectantly around the table.

"Hey. What about Nagito?"

There were lots of times where Nagito wanted to punch Ouma, and this was one of them.

"Nagito? Well, he is one of our top killers. Yeah, sounds okay." Kuzuryuu said as Ouma slapped a hand onto Nagito's shoulder.

"Yeaah, you wanna go right? Make up for all that missed work?" Ouma's smile was huge and fake and scary, and Nagito knew he didn't really have a choice. Ouma was definitely planning something. 

"I- I, uh, o-okay." Nagito managed to stutter out. Ouma's smile softened.

"That's a team, then. You six, stay, the rest of you can leave." Kuzuryuu dismissed the meeting, and there was a shuffle as everyone rushed to get out. Nagito sunk into his seat.

"Ouma.."

"What? You wanted to save Kazuichi, didn't you?"

"Yeah, but-"

"Shut up. I want to do something, anyway, and I need your help." 

"What are you planning this time?" Nagito sighed, wishing he could disappear. 

"Oh, you'll see."

Nagito barely listened as Kuzuryuu explained the plan to them, figuring that he'd just go along with whatever happened, per usual. They were to meet at Fuyuhiko HQ at midnight, to be driven secretly to Oogami HQ so that Oogami didn't find out that they knew their location. Then they'd go in, follow Ouma's plan, get the kidnapped trio and leave. Nothing else, if they saw a worker they were to kill them or knock them out, no taking stuff, no snooping around. Just get in there, get the poeple and leave.

At the back of Nagito's head, there was a part of him that hoped Hajime was there. Just so he could see him again, even if it meant him being in danger. Was that bad?

Probably. With his head swirling with worries of Ouma's plan, Hajime and Kazuichi, Nagito left Fuyuhiko headquarters in silent anxiety, not ready for his return later that day. Something bad was going to happen tonight, and he could tell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> gagshhshdjehhs
> 
> first of all, i noticed that part of chapter 5 wasnt uploaded? it was probably stupid on my part but its up now so please go reread it because the missing part was pretty important and yeah sorry.
> 
> second of all ??? im sorry for not updating for ages honestly if the next chapter isnt up in like a month someone drop me a dm on my ig (@hetalinati) or my tumblr (@quhinn). hdhsjjdjd the next chap is gonna be wild and i bet nobody cares about this anymore but y e e t


	10. not chill

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> things just got wilder

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: murder, depictions of blood & violence. this is a fic abt hitmen i wouldnt read it if your squeamish abt these things

Nagito spent all day napping. He'd realised as soon as he got home that he was exhausted from the previous day and night, and subsequently flopped into bed and fell asleep for three hours straight. It was 2pm when he woke up again, sleep dust in his eyes and uncomfortable since he fell asleep in his jeans, still a little bit damp from the rain yesterday (he took them off, opting to just wear his boxers and Hajime's shirt). He forced himself to eat a packet of salt crisps and down a glass of water, since he knew he'd need his strength for later. Then, he put on some random TV show that he didn't care about, curled up on his couch under a blanket and fell asleep again.

His alarm went off at 11, and although it was hard, he dragged himself up again. He sipped a cup of sweet tea as he got dressed into a plain black hoodie and black jeans; Fuyuhiko didn't have a uniform, and clothing hadn't been discussed at the meeting, but when on a job it was safer and more practical to wear plain, dark colours, and simple clothes that wouldn't get in the way of anything. He'd probably be cold in just a hoodie, but whatever, he was always cold.

There was a sick feeling in Nagito's stomach that didn't get any better when he tried to eat a sandwich. This was a bad idea (the mission and the sandwich)

He left the house at 11:30. Anxiety crept into his mind at being out alone this late, but then he remembered that he was a hitman and he killed people for a living and he had no reason to be scared. Normally, he'd get the bus to Fuyuhiko HQ, but the buses had stopped running hours ago and he'd look shifty anyway. Better just hurry to get there as soon as possible. Besides, as he'd expected, it was cold. It was technically Autumn now, so he wasn't surprised. 

Peko opened the door for him when he knocked, ushering him in without a smile. He was early, she informed him, first to arrive. She told him to go to the staff room and wait, so he stumbled up the stairs. It was weird seeing the place so quiet; normally, there were people running around, carrying documents of murdered people or suitcases of weapons, sorting out commissions, cars, communications, the like. Now it was dead silent, all apart from Peko's footsteps as she returned to Kuzuryuu's office. 

The staff room was also disturbingly empty. No exhausted employee making coffee, no secretary hudled over the printer, no chatter or gossip. Nagito sat down on one of the worn out sofas and checked his phone, which he'd charged to max in the case of an emergency. Unsurprisingly, he had 0 new messages. He'd meant to text Hajime, but the new mission had come along so suddenly, and pushed all the anxiety of Hajime to one side.

He opened up his conversation with "Alex" and tried his best to think of something to say, but he had nothing. Not wanting to waste battery, he turned off his phone and put it back in his pocket, hyperaware of how quiet it was. 

Not for long.

"Nagitoooo!" 

"Oumaaa." It was their usual greeting: Ouma would yell Nagito's name, loud and drawn out and excited, and Nagito would mimik it, deadpan.

"You excited?" Ouma flumped down next to him on the couch, and Nagito wondered if "on the verge of a mental breakdown" counted as excited. 

"Not really,," 

"Aww, come on, it's gonna be so much fun!" Nagito wished Ouma was being sarcastic, but something told him this was genuine. "Just relax, don't be nervous."

"But- what if,, He's there." Nagito whispered, even though there was no one else in the room.

"Hajime?" Ouma said, not quietly at all. Nagito flinched.

"Mm." 

"Then just, like, kiss him or something." Ouma shrugged. "Take him back to your place for some-"

"No..! What if he catches us? What do we do?" 

"I'm sure we won't get caught." Ouma said matter of factly. "I have a plan, remember?"

"Mmhm." Nagito's hands were shaking.

"Don't you trust me??" 

"You're the least trustworthy person I know, Ouma-"

"Good evening!" Gonta entered the room, followed by Kyouko, who simply nodded. Ouma grinned. 

"Gonta! Kyouko! Looking forward to tonight?"

"Gonta is a little worried.." Gonta sat down next to Ouma, who squished up right against Nagito.

"Ah, it'll be okay! I know what I'm doing." Ouma said, as Kyouko perched quietly on the couch opposite and ignored them. Nagito tried to meet her eyes, but she was focusing on her hands in her lap.

Mondo was next to arrive, all burning with anger and shouting about Kiyotaka. He sure seemed upset about it, Nagito thought. He knew Mondo and Kiyotaka were close, but this seemed like it was... more, somehow. Maybe he was thinking too deeply into it.

"Is everyone here?" Kuzuryuu entered, Peko at his side.

"Almost. Makoto isn't here yet." said Ouma, still smiling somehow. Nagito wondered how he could grin and joke around at a time like this, when he could barely breathe from nerves. 

"'Kay." Kuzuryuu nodded, and promptly left again, probably to sort out the ride.

As the others (apart from Kyouko) chatted, Nagito continued to think himself into a deep hole of anxiety. What if they did get caught? Would they kill them, to get revenge for Nanami? Torture them, to get information? He knew that, as a hitman, he shouldn't be getting stressed over this stuff, since he dealt with it every day, but he couldn't stop his mind assuming the worst. What if Hajime was the one to kill him?

"Hey, guys." Makoto had finally arrived. "Sorry I'm late, I got caught in traffic."

"It's fine." Kyouko spoke for the first time that evening, and Makoto smiled a little, joining her on the couch.

"That's all of us." Ouma stated, and the rest nodded quietly, as if it had only just sunk in to them what they were about to do. "You all ready?" 

"As ready as I'll ever be." said Mondo, in an attempt to joke. It failed.

"Ah, you're all here." Kuzu was back, with Peko of course. "Well, are you ready?"

Ouma nodded with a stretched smile, whilst everyone else fell silent.

"It's going to be okay. I'm counting on you all as some of our best killers." Kuzu tried to smile, something his face wasn't used to. "The cars outside ready. Peko's gonna drive you."

Everyone shuffled to their feet, Nagito shoving his quivering hands into his pockets and walking slowly behind Ouma as they left. It was even more eerily quiet now; nobody said a word.

It was one of the bigger cars, so they could all fit. Nagito folded down the back seats and squished into the one behind, not enough room for his legs left. Kyouko sat next to him, no acknowledge of his existence at all, whilst Ouma, Mondo and Makoto sandwiched into the row in front. Gonta sat next to Peko in the front, who tried to give them a comforting smile, but instead just turned into a sympathetic smirk.

The drive was surprisingly short, Oogami headquarters was closer than Nagito had assumed. Ouma stopped trying to make conversation half way through, apparently losing himself to his thoughts and gazing out the window.

"Here we are." before Nagito could decend into another internal monologue, they'd arrived. Fuck, wait, Nagito wasn't ready yet. Surely there was more time?

"Let's go. Got your weapons?" a kind of bleached confidence washed over Nagito, and he felt the buzz of a kill running through him. He was gonna do this. He had too.

"Yep." Nagito brandished his gun, as did Ouma and Mondo. Makoto and Kyouko looked less sure.

"Alright then." Peko gave them a last glance. "Good luck, I guess."

"Thanks." Ouma opened his door and hopped out, the rest following. Oogami headquarters loomed dark and intimidating above them, and Nagito noted there were lights on in the windows.

They waited until Peko drove off, then all turned to Ouma, who had taken the unofficial role as leader.

"Right, gang." he started.

"Gang?"

"Yeah. We're a gang, that's out squad name."

"I don't like gang.."

"How about "The Bois", then?"

"Can you take this seriously, please?" Kyouko snapped. "We don't need a squad name."

"Just trying to boost team spirit." Ouma smiled, and Kyouko scowled. "Right. There's a door round the back that should be unguarded, we need to climb into the garden area to access it though. The wall isn't too high, we should be able to climb over it. It's unlikely that there'll be someone in the garden, but keep your guns handy."

"Okay. Let's go." They snuck around the back, to the grubby wall that lead to the garden, only a bit taller than Nagito's head.

"Gimme a boost, Nagito." Ouma said.

"Ugh." Nagito sighed and bent down, cupping his hands for Ouma to stand on. "Fuck, you're so heavy."

"Rude." Ouma scrambled from the wall top. "I work very hard to keep this figure." he pulled himself over. "Aight, it's clear. C'mon."

Nagito dragged himself over too, scraping the knees of his jeans open on a scrag in the wall.

"Fuck." 

"Watch your language, Nagito!" Gonta crashed to the ground beside them.

"Shit, sorry." Nagito said, watching Mondo struggle over the wall. "I mean- fuck- shit- sorry."

"Be quiet." Kyouko dropped lightly next to them.

"Sorry." Nagito looked over at Makoto struggling to scale over the top of the wall. "Need some help?"

"Yes please." he reached over and grabbed Makoto's hand, helping to pull him over and holding his shoulder firmly when he landed to stop him stumbling over. 

"Thanks." Makoto smiled weakly.

"No problem." Nagito smiled back. "You good?" Makoto had seemed sort of shakey all day.

"Oh, yeah.. Just nervous, you know." he looked at the building 

"Yeah, me too." Nagito watched Ouma peer quietly through the glass of the backdoor. "There's so much that could go wrong.."

"Hey! C'mon, hurry up." Ouma whispered at them, and Nagito noticed the door was wide open now, Mondo disappearing inside. Quickly they scurried into the building, Ouma following behind and shutting the door. 

It lead into a small, dimly lit corridor, about 15 metres long, with different doors going off on each side and a set of narrow stairs going up at the end. Kyouko lead the way, and they all shuffled down the hallway, guns up and ready.

"Okay. We need to split into groups then search the whole building." Ouma muttered once they'd reached the stairs. "There's 8 floors including this one, so I'm saying we split into 2 groups and take 4 floors each."

"Okay." Kyouko nodded. "What groups, then?"

"I'm calling dibs on Nagito and Makoto, so the rest of y'all can go together." Ouma said, putting his arm around Nagito's shoulder. Nagito cringed at Ouma saying "y'all" in an english accent.

"Fine. We'll take the bottom 4 floors." Kyouko said.

"Litty." Ouma said, then seemed to regret that. "I mean, good."

"Did you really just say "litty"?" Makoto giggled.

"Maybe.." Ouma grinned. "Welp, the sooner we get outta here, the better. Let's go."

So it began. Nagito took the space imbetween Ouma and Makoto as Ouma lead them up the stairs, silent and poised to shoot as they reached the top. His hair bounced around his face as he looked left and right multiple times. 

"It's clear." he slipped out into the open, a large hall-type area with odd abstract paintings on the walls and thin grey carpet on the floor. "We need to go up two more floors. C'mon."

Nagito wanted to stay and look around at the environment that Hajime worked in, searching maybe for a sign of him or something left behind, but Ouma was already darting up the next flight of stairs. With one last glance around the bare room, Nagito followed. 

Everything was, just as it was at Fuyuhiko, eerily quiet. The building felt strangely empty, with all the lights on but no sign of life around. Not that Nagito was complaining; he didn't exactly want to run into anybody. Still, it was creeping him out how desolate this place was. Nagito reminded himself that it was around 1am, and that Fuyuhiko headquarters was probably like this in the middle of the night too, but he still couldn't shake the looming feeling that there was something wrong.

Footsteps. 

Heavy footsteps, the walk of someone not used to being stealthy, lazy and slow. They were coming down the stairs above them, the ones leading to the fouth floor. Nagito's head whipped around in the direction of the noise, then to Ouma and Makoto. Surely they'd heard them too? They were so loud?? And getting closer by the second. 

Ouma continued to sneak towards the stairs. He couldn't hear the footsteps. Was Nagito going crazy? Ouma was about to come face to face with a probable enemy worker, and if Nagito said anything they'd be alerting others of their presence. The walls started to close in on Nagito. What if they were about to run heafirst into Sakura Oogami herself?

The person turned the corner before them, and Nagito pulled out his knife.

He was... not what Nagito was expecting. Extremely overweight, strange proportions, a bag of crisps in his greasy hands, small glasses perched in front of his squinted eyes that barely reacted as he saw them. Makoto froze and Ouma jumped as he saw him, but Nagito shoved them aside, grabbing the man by the collar of his sweaty, too-small jacket. 

His lips quivered and his hands scrambled against Nagito's chest, trying to hit something as his eyes darted between all of them. Nagito scanned his face... surely this guy wasn't a killer? There was no way... forget it, he had a job to do.

The unknown man simply squeaked as Nagito's blade slit his throat, puncturing all the main arteries and veins just like Nagito had learnt to do. He dropped him before too much blood could get on his hands, his large body hitting the floor with a soft flump.

"Oh boy..." Ouma muttered, crouching next to the body. "I don't recognise this guy from the list of hitmen here... Do you think he's new or something?"

"He doesn't look much like a hitman to me.." Nagito said, wiping his knife on his hoodie sleeve and putting it back in his pocket. Makoto swallowed quietly and knelt next to Ouma by the body, avoiding the growing red stain on the carpet.

"Let's see.." Ouma began to search through the man's pockets as Nagito watched in disgust. 

"Ouma, leave him, there's not gonna be-"

"Got it." Ouma pulled out a small card from the man's trouser pocket. Hs studied it for a second, then held it up to Nagito and Makoto.

"Hifumi Yamada. He was a night security guard."

Nagito didn't look at the card. Instead, his eyes fell on the man again.

"Oogami really have people like.. this as their nightwatch?" he said.

"Maybe he was really clever or something." Ouma said, equally as confused as Nagito. 

"Was he really worth killing?" Makoto whispered. "He didn't do anything."

"He would've told someone though. We can't be seen." Ouma stood up and grabbed the man's limp feet. "Get his head, Nagi, help me carry him."

Nagito sighed and did as Ouma told him, taking the man's bloody shoulders in his hands and hauling his body up, with Ouma holding his feet.

"Makoto, open that cupboard door. We can leave him there."

Makoto grimaced and opened the door, opening to show a compressed closet full of cleaning supplies. Together, they stuffes the body in, his lifeless head flopping against the door as they shut it.

"What about the bloodstain?" Nagito said, wiping his red hands on his jeans. Ouma shrugged. 

"There isn't really much we can do about it. I'm sure we'll be gone by the time someone notices it."

"Alright." Nagito nodded. "Well, let's continue."

So they did. Less than an hour in, Nagito thought, and he already had someone else's blood under his nails. This was gonna be a long night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bada bing bada boom this isnt discontinued i just took a small break from writing just in general. my exams are over now so hopefully ill get this fic back on track so yall stop bamboozling my sarahah telling me to update lol. but actually thank you all for reading this is so close to 3000 hits which is crazy?? itll probably reach 3000 after i upload this so in advance thank you so much, i never realised people would actually like this. as always, hmu on my ig @hetalinati, my tumblr @quhinn or my twitter @joonspacito if you have questions or feedback, or leave it in the comments below :) thanks for reading !
> 
> edit like months later lol: if youre reading this then i know i havent updated in months i promise it isnt dropped or discontinued im just busy and not rlly in the danganronpa fandom anymore but i promise!! promise promise that i am still working on this. its ever nearly finished and i put in too much effort to drop it so if anyone is still reading, please stay with me uwu


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